Phenological Assessment and its implications on Flowering Conditions of Japanese Horse Chestnut Tree (Aesculus turbinata) Populations in Watershed Landscapes
発表者／presenter’s name：〇Yoshihiko IIDA 1
所属／Affiliation：1 University of Tsukuba

要旨／Abstract
Japanese horse chestnut forest (Aesculus turbinata), ‘Tochinoki’ in Japanese, grows in montane riparian forests and is an important component in the conservation of watershed landscapes. The bio-seasonal processes of flowering and fruiting (phenology) of horse chestnut are closely linked to the provision of ecosystem services in mountain areas. Continuous monitoring of flowering and fruiting phenology provides important insights for the sustainable conservation and use of Japanese horse chestnut forests. In this study, visual flowering assessment was carried out in forest areas where Japanese horse chestnut is continuously used for the local. An individual-level phenological evaluation method (Iida ,2022) was developed for grasping changes in the state of inflorescences for 90 Japanese horse chestnuts trees. Classification criteria derived from visual assessment includes phenological rank of inflorescence on tree crown, occupation rank of inflorescence on tree crown and occupation rank of flower abscission under tree crown. Using these rank classifications of flowering phenology, temporal visual assessment survey of individual trees was conducted in May 2021, 2022 and 2023. Only the data of 71 trees more than 30 cm in DBH was used for data processing. The results revealed changes in flowering over time according to the inflorescence ranks, and the inflorescence occupancy ranks allowed the trend of inflorescence development in the whole population to be determined over time. Defining the value of Japanese horse chestnut populations through flowering assessment can be linked to climate change impact assessments and genetic diversity assessments, in addition to the assessment of forest ecosystem services related to community economic activities such as nuts collection and honey gathering. By integrating them, this research project hopes to contribute to the development of conservation strategies for watershed landscapes.

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