Stillberg - Switzerland

The research site Stillberg is located in the treeline ecotone (1980- 2230 m asl) near Davos in the Central Alps (eastern Switzerland; 47°82’ N, 78°30’ E). It is located on a northeast-facing, slope (30-45°), featuring topographically highly structured terrain.Mean annual precipitation at Stillberg is 1050 mm. The July mean daily temperature is 9.4°C, while the mean daily temperature in January is –5.8°C. Average maximum snow depth is 146 cm, varying between 60 cm on wind exposed spurs and 420 cm on leeward slopes. The research facility “Stillberg” is a long term monitoring site near treeline in the Swiss Alps. The main experiment is an afforestation experiment with 92’000 trees planted in 1975 over an altitudinal gradient of 150 m). The Stillberg site is a long term research area of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) and is close to the research building of WSL in Davos (SLF). Maintained infrastructure includes two research laboratories at 2000 and at 2230 m a.s.l. (with working space, kitchen and sleeping rooms), a cable car transport system and a helicopter platform to the upper research lab. The Stillberg research site is owned by a consortium of farmers and leased by the SLF/WSL. Research focuses on I) the ecology and limiting factors of the timberline ecotone; II) potential effects of climate- and land-use change in Alpine ecosystems and III) establishing suitable measures to decrease the risk of snow avalanches. Beside the monitoring of the planted trees (survival, growth, damages of each tree) various ecological experiments have been carried out on the Stillberg site, including long-term measurements of photosynthesis and microclimatic parameters, investigations of soil parameters and processes, measurements of root growth, fertilization effects and snow-plant interactions. As research area of the MAB-Programm and the vicinity to the SLF/WSL research center in Davos, the Dischmavalley is one of the best investigated Alpine valleys of the world with a large number of investigations about alpine ecology, geomorphology, land-use change and forest dynamics