Dendrolab of Forest Research Institute

Trees are one of the natural archives of environmental history. They provide long-term data series on the process of radial growth and the factors determining it with annual or even seasonal resolution. Dendrolab of Forest Reseach Institute [Dendrolab IBL] conducts dendroecological and dendroclimatological studies of past and present tree growth using dendrochronology, wood anatomy, and dendrometer data. Studies of growth response to environmental conditions, including various disturbances, provide insight into how trees adapt to different changes, such as climate change or fire regime change. In our research, we take an interdisciplinary approach and collaborate with experts in paleoecology, archeology, climatology, environmental history, remote sensing, wood technology, plant ecology, and hydrology. In our studies, we focus on European temperate forests.

Our current research includes:

Scots pine ecology in pine bog forests

Adaptation of non-native tree species in Europe to climate change

Tree ring fire history reconstruction

Provenance studies

Dendrolab of Forest Research Institute combines laboratories in Sękocin (Department of Silviculture and Forest Tree Genetics) and Białowieża (Department of Natural Forests). Our laboratories offer species identification, cross-dating, digitization and analysis of macro- and microscopic wood samples, etc. Dendrolab of Forest Research Institute is equipped with: stereoscopes with cameras (ZEISS, Leica, Opta-Tech), LINTAB 6, EPSON (A3), ZEISS AxioScanZ1 slide scanner with fluorescence, slide microtomes: WSL microtome, WSL core microtome, Leica HistoCore BIOCUT rotary microtome, Leica TP1020, Leica HistoCore Arcadia. We use a wide range of dedicated software: WinDENDRO, WinCELL, TSAPWin, CooRecorder, CDendro, ROXAS.

We cooperate with leading tree ring laboratories in Europe. We are open to research collaborations on environmental history and tree growth. Dendrolab of Forest Research Institute can host interns, scholar fellows, and undergraduate and graduate students (BSc, MSc, PhD).

Projects implemented in cooperation with Dendrolab

Current papers

Jevšenak, J., Klisz, M., Mašek, J., Čada, V., Zlatanov, T., Scharnweber, T., Ahlgrimm, S., Stolz, J., Sochová, I., Roibu, C., Pretzsch, H., Schmied, G., Uhl, E., Kaczka, R., Wrzesiński, P., Šenfeldr, M., Tumajer, J., Wilmking, M., Obojes, N., Rybníček, M., Lévesque, M., Potapov, A., Stojanović, M., Stjepanović, S., Vitas, A., Arnič, D., Metslaid, S., Neycken, A., Prislan, P., Hartl, C., Ziche, D., Horáček, P., Krejza, J., Světlík, J., Kalisty, A., Kolář, T., 2024. Incorporating high-resolution climate, remote sensing and topographic data to map annual forest growth in central and eastern Europe. Sci. Total Environ. 913, 169692.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169692

Wrzesiński, P., Klisz, M. & Niemczyk, M. Looking for a drought-tolerant tree species among native and introduced mountain conifers. Trees (2024).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-024-02491-z

Puchałka, R., Prislan, P., Klisz, M., Koprowski, M., Gričar, J., 2024. Tree-ring formation dynamics in Fagus sylvatica and Quercus petraea in a dry and a wet year. Dendrobiology 91, 1–15.
https://doi.org/10.12657/denbio.091.001