Tree species diversity impacts average radial growth of beech and oak trees in Belgium, not their long-term growth trend

Background Environmental change has resulted in changes in forest growth in Europe during the last century. This has consequences for the products and services delivered by forest. Mixing tree species is often proposed as a strategy to deal with the consequences of climate change. Diversifying forests is believed to result in higher productivity and increased growth stability. Tree species diversity is therefore expected to affect long-term trends in tree radial growth. However, this has not yet been studied. In this paper we study the effect of diversity on the radial growth and its long-term trends for beech and oak trees growing along a gradient of tree species diversity in the loamy region of central Belgium (from monocultures to mixed forests patches up to three species).