TIME TRENDS IN AGE-AGE COVARIANCES AND CORRELATIONS - EXAMPLES FROM NORWAY SPRUCE CLONES

A Norway spruce clonal test, established with 5 clones on 4 extremely contrasting sites in 1967 and remeasured for height 10 times until 198 1 has been used for an investigation of the following 3 topics: 1. Des cription of juvenile-mature correlations by LAMBETH'S formula. 2. Inve stigation of time trends in age-age covariances, age-age correlations and standard deviations. 3. Proposal of a new formula for juvenile-mat ure correlations dependent on age. One obtains nearly perfect linear d ependency between covariance and age as well as between standard devia tion and age. The correlation coefficients show a rapid decrease in th e first years, while this decrease diminishes and finally tends asympt otically towards a specific constant level. The proposed new formula f or age-age correlations provides a considerably better fit between obs erved and expected values than LAMBETH'S formula.