• Context

Forest stand dynamics models simulate the growth of trees in stands; based on field measurements and system knowledge, they provide a relatively precise representation of forest growth and are well adapted for forest management purposes. Architectural models describe the structure of plants according to ontogenetic development processes; as a support of biomass production and partitioning at organ scale, they simulate individual tree development.

• Aims

The aim of this study was to link a stand dynamics model and an architectural model to simulate stand dynamics, in which the ecological or silvicultural modelling from the stand model and the architecture representation could be integrated, to provide individual tree details at the stand level.

• Methods

Stand-level simulations of Austrian black pine dynamics provided global results on tree growth from the empirical forest growth model PNN, and branching details for individual trees were provided by the functional–structural plant model (FSPM) GreenLab.

• Results

Individual tree dynamics were computed, and the simulated trees were integrated at the stand level for visualizing two different management scenarios.

• Conclusion

By combining a stand dynamics model adapted to forest management with an FSPM with detailed tree architecture, it is possible to simulate individual tree structure with consistent dimensions, adapted to ecological and silvicultural modelling for decision support in forest management.