| Abstract [eng] |
Symptoms of European hornbeam (Carpinus betulus L.) Range Shift in Lithuania European hornbeam (Carpinus betulus L.) is a common forest tree species in Lithuania, which reaches the northern limit of it‘s range in Lithuania. The boundary of it‘s range was measured and set by J. Rauktys in the year 1925-1926. Later, other scientists also tried to specify the range boundary, but the results showed no significant changes on the range shift. In the year 2009 M. Leščiukaitis in his work was using the data of ArcGis, the Forest Cadastre of the Republic of Lithuania and the OpenModeller program to determine the range boundaries of the European hornbeam in Lithuania and states that according to the program and results, European hornbeam currently can grow almost in all Lithuania country. The aim of this study is to confirm/deny the hypothesis that European hornbeam must show some biological symptoms of it‘s changing range in Lithuania regarding the data mentioned above. Three populations of different latitudes in Lithuania were selected for the survey: in the North of the country, called the island of distribution, on the range margin ant in the South. Also three biological traits were selected for the investigation to measure: leaf morphological traits; seedling – sapling and mature tree proportion; and germination of seed. All three populations were compared to each other. Studies have shown that according to leaf morphological traits the population in the North on the range island is more similar to the populations in the south of the country. This indicates that their growth conditions (both climatic and edaphic) in these habitats were similar in the year 2019. Also the tree age on the range island showed that the growth conditions there are more suitable than a decade or two ago. This could indicate the impact of climate change on the European hornbeam habitat in the North. Seed germination has showed no signs of habitat changes. |
