European beech forests are a valuable ecosystem and of high economic importance in large parts of Europe (Figure 5.3). For a better understanding of the ability to cope with future challenges under predicted global warming and to help establishing a base for a future wellbeing of this important and beautiful forest tree, I would like recommend the following approaches:
Seedlings and saplings likely differ from mature trees in their response to drought.
Accordingly, corresponding studies on the drought response of mature trees are required.
Despite the difficult realizability, the separation of adaptive from non-heritable modifying drought responses would call for common garden experiments with mature trees.
The role of soil water storage for the growth dynamics of beech requires further study by considering other geologic substrates and soil types. A comparison of sites with largely different soil profile depths as done by Weber et al. (2013) should detect more pronounced effects of soil water storage capacity.
Figure 5.3. Mature beech forest in the north-western German Lowlands.
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