Fig. 1.

Soil water contents of the upper 20 cm (mm) of the soil of forest stands with different management intensity (unmanaged beech, managed beech and managed conifer forest) in the three different biodiversity exploratories (Schorfheide, Hainich, Schwäbische Alb) as calculated by the forest-hydrological model LWF- Brook90 (solid lines) and measured volumetric soil water contents (%) averaged over the upper 10 cm (symbols). Solid blue lines Computed soil water content for the control subplots without roofs, solid red lines soil water content in the precipitation reduction treatment, grey areas between the lines reduction in soil water content by the precipitation reduction treatment, dashed lines ratio of the soil water content between reduced precipitation and control subplots, blue squares measured volumetric water contents as determined in spring/early summer and late summer in 2012 and 2013 on the control subplots (± SD), red circles measured values of the roofed subplots. Note that the y-axes for computed soil water content and for measured volumetric soil water content differ among exploratories and silvicultural treatments. Measured values were not obtained for all management treatments in all exploratories at all four time points