2, Fig. 3, Fig. 4 and Fig. 5). In general, the very large height:diameter ratios of young stands are underestimated by the models (Fig. 2, Fig. 3, Fig. 4 and Fig. 5), except for BWIN and Silva for pine growing at Litschau ( Fig. 5b, e). The regression coefficients and the plots indicate that the age trend for spruce in Arnoldstein is underestimated by Silva ( Fig.

2e). On the other hand, both Moses (Arnoldstein and Litschau) and Prognaus (Arnoldstein) underestimate the age trend for pine ( Fig. 3 and Fig. 5). All four models on both sites confirmed the hypothesis that dominant trees have lower height:diameter ratios than mean trees. The differences between height:diameter I-BET-762 cost ratios of dominant and average trees are larger for spruce than for pine for both observed and predicted values ( Fig. 2, Fig. 3, Fig. 4 and Fig. 5). With respect to the 80:1 reference line indicating stand stability, the following can be seen from the figures: for spruce in Arnoldstein (Fig. 2a), the dominant trees are almost all below the 80:1 threshold

and the mean tree is above the threshold. This pattern is predicted well by all four growth models. A similar pattern is observed for spruce in Litschau, although here the deviations of the growth models from the observed values were larger (Fig. 4). Only Prognaus classifies the plots reasonably well with respect to the stability Cilengitide price threshold ( Fig. 4d). For pine, the performance of BWIN and Silva is good and many plots are correctly classified with respect to the 80:1 threshold. However, BWIN and Silva do tend to overerestimate height:diameter ratios for stands 40-years and younger ( Fig. 5b, e). Prognaus yields acceptable results, whereas Moses underestimates the height:diameter ratios, in particular those of young stands ( Fig. 5c). From Table 10 the following can be observed with respect to stand density: an increase of 100 units of SDI corresponds to an increase of height:diameter ratios of 4.9 and 7.9 for dominant trees and of about 20 units for mean stems for spruce and pine. Predicted effects range from 1.2 units and 26 units for dominant trees and from 9.5 to 32 click here units for the mean stem. For

both spruce and pine, BWIN and Moses overestimate the effect of density, while Prognaus and Silva underestimate the effect of density. For the mean stem, predicted effects are 0.5–2.0 times as high as the observed effects. For dominant trees, the predicted effects are 0.15–5.3 times as high as the observed effect. Fig. 6 compares the height:diameter ratios predicted by the forest growth models to the reference equations of Stampfer (1995). The height:diameter ratios obtained from the forest growth models are in most cases higher than the reference equations. The largest discrepancies are found for spruce and pine on poor sites, where the height:diameter ratios predicted by Silva and BWIN are lower than the reference equations for almost all diameters.