This manual offers foresters information to help them understand the performance of spruce seedlings after being planted on a reforestation site. It was written for university students taking a regeneration silviculture class, and foresters and researchers who work with spruce species.

This is a concise and comprehensive review of the biology, ecology, and management of Norway spruce. Written by 25 experts in the field, and richly illustrated, it integrates classic and contemporary literature. More than 2000 works are cited in the text, which highlights basic research and forestry practices in central and Eastern Europe. The huge range of topics covered includes the species’ morphology, its physiology and nutrition, and its ecology.

This is the first truly modern book solely devoted to seed reproduction of forest trees-from flowering to establishment, with emphasis on the interaction of environment with physiological processes. Focus is on seed function in natural settings and the application of information to natural regeneration of forests. This easy-to-read text addresses important principles and provides in-depth coverage of existing literature. Presentation of the information is organized to allow for a natural development of the main theme with full explanations of such important components as seed production, dispersal and germination, as well as the integral parts played by water, temperature, light, chemicals, animals, pathogens and aging. A highly useful book for investigators, practitioners or students.

With more than 500 species distributed all around the Northern Hemisphere, the genus Quercus L. is a dominant element of a wide variety of habitats including temperate, tropical, subtropical and mediterranean forests and woodlands. As the fossil record reflects, oaks were usual from the Oligocene onwards, showing the high ability of the genus to colonize new and different habitats. Such diversity and ecological amplitude makes genus Quercus an excellent framework for comparative ecophysiological studies, allowing the analysis of many mechanisms that are found in different oaks at different level (leaf or stem). The combination of several morphological and physiological attributes defines the existence of different functional types within the genus, which are characteristic of specific phytoclimates. From a landscape perspective, oak forests and woodlands are threatened by many factors that can compromise their future: a limited regeneration, massive decline processes, mostly triggered by adverse climatic events or the competence with other broad-leaved trees and conifer species. The knowledge of all these facts can allow for a better management of the oak forests in the future.

Although, as W.D. Billings notes in his chapter in this book. the development of physiological ecology can be traced back to the very beginnings of the study of ecology it is clear that the modern development of this field in North America is due in the large part to the efforts of Billings alone. The foundation that Billings laid in the late 1950s came from his own studies on deserts and subsequently arctic and alpine plants, and also from his enormous success in instilling enthusiasm for the field in the numerous students attracted to the plant ecology program at Duke University. Billings' own studies provided the model for subsequent work in this field. Physiological techniques. normally confined to the laboratory. were brought into the field to examine processes under natural environmental conditions. These field studies were accompanied by experiments under controlled conditions where the relative impact of various factors could be assessed and further where genetic as opposed to environmental influences could be separated. This blending of field and laboratory approaches promoted the design of experiments which were of direct relevance to understanding the distribution and abundance of plants in nature. Physiological mechanisms were studied and assessed in the context of the functioning of plants under natural conditions rather than as an end in itself.