Papers to discuss

- "on the south-west facing slopes of the massif, at higher elevations, are shorter, with lower slenderness indices and relatively broader crowns" \cite{Szwagrzyk_2015}
- The intraspecific variability of rowan architecture \cite{Laurans_2024}
- Canopy heterogeneity may allow small-statured individuals to receive enough radiation, when facilitated by either wide-and-shallow or longer crowns \cite{Shenkin_2020}
- Rowan is monocormic or polycormic, particularly if subjected to grazing pressure. Branch angles are acute to stem, forming a narrow crown, with a monopodial branching pattern \cite{l1986,2000}. On abandoned subalpine hay meadows and pastures, rowans’ growth form change along with elevation, at higher elevations rowans are shorter, their stems are thinner, and they have more shoots per plant than at lower elevations \cite{Durak_2016}.  
- Rowan is generally considered a hardy pioneer species, which only occasionally forms pure stands and usually occurs at low density in forest \cite{Holeksa_2017,_ywiec_2007,Durak_2016}. Its ecological role is highest in boreal and subalpine forests \cite{l1986,Holeksa_2017}. In disturbed patches of the subalpine spruce forests, rowan is often the first species forming short-lived thickets before spruce stands regenerate \cite{Holeksa_2017,_ywiec_2007}.
- distributed through almost all of Europe, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, western Siberia and North Africa \cite{2000}
- Sprouting is very effective mechanism of extending the lifespan of seedlings suppressed in the forest understory \cite{_ywiec_2012a}.
- Milne-Rostkowska M., Holeksa J., Bogdziewicz M., Piechnik Ł., Seget B., Kurek P., Buda J., Żywiec M. 2020. Where can palatable young trees escape herbivore pressure in a protected forest? Forest Ecology and Management 47: 118221. \cite{Milne_Rostkowska_2020}
- The distribution of rowan trees in subalpine spruce forest is clumped because rowan trees are light- demanding, growing mostly in tree stand gaps or in the young spruce stands where they had not yet been eliminated by spruce or above forest limit (Holeksa and Żywiec 2005\cite{_ywiec_2012b}.
- When suppressed in the forest understory it grows slowly, whilst in a gap the growth increment increases several times \cite{m2008}.