Tree heights and diameters of Switzerland's Sanasilva forests

Measurements of tree heights and crown sizes are essential in long-term monitoring of spatially distributed forests to assess the health of forests over time. In Switzerland, in 1994 and 1997, more than 4'500 trees have been recorded in a 8x8 km plot within the Sanasilva Inventory, which comprises the Swiss Level I sites of the International Co-operative Programme on Assessment and Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Forests' (ICP Forests). Tree heights and crown sizes were measured for the dominant and co-dominant trees (n = 1,723), resulting in a data set from 171 plots in Switzerland, spreading over a broad range of climatic gradient and forest characteristics (species recorded = 20). Average tree height was 22.1 m, average DBH 34.6 cm and crown diameter 6.5 m. The data set presented here is open to use and shall foster research in allometric equation modelling.

Occurence of monothalamous foraminifera in Admiralty Bay, King George Island, West Antarctica (Table 1, 2)

During the late 2007 austral summer, 20 sediment samples were collected in Admiralty Bay (King George Island, South Shetlands, West Antarctica) from 8 down to 254 m water-depth (mwd). The samples yielded abundant assemblage of monothalamous benthic foraminifera, belonging to at least 40 morphospecies. They constituted the first such collection from Antarctic Peninsula fjords and provided a new insight into this group's diversity and distribution. Among organic-walled taxa, Psammophaga sp., Allogromia cf. crystallifera, and three morphotypes of Gloiogullmia were especially abundant. Agglutinated forms were dominated by Hippocrepinella hirudinea, Psammosphaera spp., Lagenammina spp., and various mudballs. Although, the majority of the morphotypes were known from other high?latitude locations, somewere reported for the first time. Our quantitative data (>125 µm) showed the greatest differences between monothalamous foraminifera assemblages at shallowest water depths above 50 mwd. The deepest assemblages from between 179 and 254 mwd, were most similar, suggesting uniform near-bottom conditions at ~200 mwd throughout the Admiralty Bay.