Scots pine radial growth in Vilnius and Kaunas cities in comparison with clean environment

Trees growing in urban environment are exposed to regional and local air pollution, thus they are more vulnerable than trees in natural ecosystems. Methods of control stands, comparison of healthy and damaged individual trees, comparison of growth periods before and after the beginning of air pollution effect are used to assess radial increment changes in territories with high local pollution level. The growth rate of Scots pine stem is sensitive to environmental changes, therefore annual radial increment is a convenient air pollution indicator in cities. 330 sample Scots pine trees in 15 sample plots in Kaunas and 456 sample pines in 19 sample plots in Vilnius city parks and forest parks, 72 sample pines in 3 control stands in Lekėčiai forester’s district (30 km west from Kaunas city) were chosen for radial growth analysis. 1981-1995 year period revealed that environmental conditions in Vilnius and Kaunas cities were significantly worse for Scots pine radial growth than in relatively favourable environment in Lekėčiai forest district. Means of transformed increment (in %) in control stands were significantly higher than in sample plots in Vilnius and Kaunas citiesVytauto Didžiojo universiteta