Productivity and carbon dynamics in managed Central European forests depending on site conditions and thinning regimes

While traditional forestry has focused on (merchantable) wood volume, today more and more information is required on the whole biomass stock, carbon sequestration or nutrient cycling. Forest growth simulators that were developed primarily from a wood volume-oriented perspective need to be expanded to cover the carbon stocks and turnover in the tree compartments. The simulator SILVA which has become a standard tool in forest science and practice in Germany has been extended with a biomass module that calculates biomass allocation into tree compartments for each simulation period. To analyse and evaluate the biomass development of even-aged pure stands of spruce, beech, pine and oak, scenarios were created for each species that differ with respect to site quality, initial tree numbers and thinning intensity. According to the simulation results, net volume and biomass growth ranges from 0.7-13.8 m(3) ha(-1) year(-1) and 0.1-6.1 t ha(-1) year(-1) corresponding to 0.1-3.1 t ha(-1) year(-1) carbon in the living biomass. Gross volume growth and net primary productivity are between 5.7-21.7 m(3) ha(-1) year(-1) and 4.5-19.9 t ha(-1) year(-1).