GROWTH OF VIRGIN FORESTS IN THE SOUTHERN CARPATHIANS

In the beginning, all forests were represented by natural virgin forest stands. These kinds of ecosystems stand for a model representation for the managed forests. The research area is situated in Western Romanian Carpathians. To understand the functioning baseline principles of the virgin forests the radial growth of beech in relation to breast height diameter (DBH) was studied. The experimental growth distribution was determined using Beta, Gamma and Weibull theoretical frequencies functions. For the dendrochronological series, 36 samples were used. The average time span is 361 years with a mean growth of 0,999 and standard deviation (SD) of 0,482. The pointer years of this dendrochronological series were determined and the radial growths were correlated with climatic data such as temperatures and precipitations. Once the trees’ volumes determined, it has been concluded that the virgin beech stands have high eco-productive characteristics (6,33 m^3· year^-1 ·ha^-1) , despite the age and climatic influences.