ABSTRACT Background: Climate change is a serious problem in forest ecosystems and it is required to manage forest stability, resilience, and vitality truly sustainable in future climatic conditions. Particularly trees are one of the crucial components in the forest ecosystem since they are exposed to climate change-induced range shifts during their growth and development. The present study, therefore, investigated how dendrometric, tree ring widths and anatomical variables of Scots pine and Sessile oak trees showed variations between managed and unmanaged forests. Results: Both Scots pine and Sessile oak trees indicated great variance in their dendrometric, tree ring width, and anatomical properties between managed and unmanaged forests. In this study, Scots pine showed taller trees in unmanaged forests, while Sessile oak forests did not show the difference in stem heights between managed and unmanaged forests. Stand characteristics revealed different patterns between managed and unmanaged forests; unmanaged forests revealed greater stand stability than managed forests for both Scots pine and Sessile oak trees. Managed forests of both Scots pine and Sessile oak trees indicated greater stem diameters than unmanaged forests. Dendrometric results also showed differences in managed and unmanaged forests since tree ring widths of Scots pine and Sessile oak trees had more than 1.5 times wider tree rings in managed forests than in unmanaged forests. Conclusion: In this study, managed forests of Scots pine and Sessile oak showed greater stand characteristics and dendrometric traits than unmanaged forests. It may be suggested that managed forests can ensure better growth and development environment for particularly Scots pine and Sessile oak trees.

ABSTRACT Background: Forest fires are one of the most important natural disasters all over the world in terms of the damage they cause to the ecosystem. Turkey is also exposed to wildfires damaging large areas of forests every year. Wildfires endanger the sustainability of forest resources and cause significant biological and ecological damage to the forests. It is crucial to estimate fire behaviour characteristics to take effective interventions in the fire events. Obtaining data based on terrestrial measurements is very expensive and very time-consuming to predict fire behaviour characteristics. The use of remote sensing technologies is therefore very useful since the satellite images will be faster, more sensitive, and economical to determine the burning severity and burning areas. Results: In this study, the forest fire that occurred in the Kastamonu-Taşköprü district was analyzed with remote sensing techniques. The fire occurred in 2020 (06.09.2020). The fire satellite image was thus taken from the pre-fire period (26.08.2020) and post-fire period (13.10.2020). First of all, pre-fire and post-fire Sentinel-2 images of fire areas were used to determine the burned area using NBR (Normalized Burn Ratio) and dNBR (Differenced Normalized Burn Ratio) indices. Also, burned area rate and burn severity were evaluated depending on the altitude, aspect, and slope factors. Conclusion: The total burned area was 1504.9 ha. The maps showed that the burned areas were covered by moderate- and high-severity classes. The forest fire was more severe in the altitude range from 1170 to 1370m, at 20-33% slope and northerly aspects in the burned area. The existence of extreme meteorological factors and the horizontal and vertical continuity of the forest fuels have been the main factors in the effect of the fire on large areas. Estimation of forest fire risk, taking into account extreme meteorological conditions and fuel properties, will have an important place in forest ecology and management.

ABSTRACT The altitude is an important factor to affect the growth and development of saplings of the tree. However, the effect of altitude on the growth and properties of wood during their young stage it has been little studied. This study, therefore, aimed to evaluate the influence of two different altitude steps: 795 m (a.s.l. low-altitude) and 1350 m (a.s.l. high altitude) on the morphological, anatomical and wood density properties of saplings of Abies nordmanniana subsp. equi-trojani [Asch. & Sint. ex Boiss] Coode & Cullen (Trojan fir). Trojan fir is an endemic species in Turkey and its morphology and anatomy have less studied in the literature. The functional traits and wood density properties differed significantly between the two altitudes. The saplings grown at low-altitude showed greater taper degree, pith radius, pith proportion, and bark proportion than high-altitude. However, stem height, stem diameter, node number, and xylem proportion were found to be higher in saplings grown at high-altitude than low-altitude. Wood cell anatomy also varied significantly between two altitudes such that ring width, ray numbers, tracheid length, and tracheid width were higher at low-altitude, whereas ray height, ray width, tracheid lumen width, and tracheid wall thickness were greater at high-altitude. This study, therefore, suggested that the growth and development of fir saplings were better when they were grown at high-altitude than low-altitude.