A warmer growing season triggers earlier following spring phenology

Tree planting programs now need to consider climate change increasingly, therefore, the resistance to pests plays an essential role in enabling tree adaptation to new ranges through tree population movement. The weevil Pissodes strobi (Peck) is a major pest of spruces and substantially reduces lumber quality. We revisited a large Interior spruce provenance/progeny trial (2,964 genotypes, 42 families) of varying susceptibility, established in British Columbia. We employed multivariate mixed linear models to estimate covariances between, and genetic control of, juvenile height growth and resistance traits. We performed linear regressions and ordinal logistic regressions to test for impact of parental origin on growth and susceptibility to the pest, respectively. A significant environmental component affected the correlations between resistance and height, with outcomes dependent on families. Parents sourced from above 950 m a.s.l. elevation negatively influenced host resistance to attacks, probably due to higher P. engelmannii proportion. For the genetic contribution of parents sourced from above 1,200 m a.s.l., however, we found less attack severity, probably due to a marked mismatch in phenologies. This clearly highlights that hybrid status might be a good predictor for weevil attacks and delineates the boundaries of successful spruce population movement. Families resulting from crossing susceptible with resistant parents generally showed fast-growing trees were the least affected by weevil attacks. Such results indicate that these “hybrids” might be genetically better equipped with an optimized resource allocation between defence and growth and might provide the solution for concurrent improvement in resistance against weevil attacks, whilst maintaining tree productivity.

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Trends and driving forces of spring phenology of oak and beech stands in the Western Carpathians from MODIS times series 2000-2021

Bucha,

Koren,

Sitková

et al. 2023

iForest

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This study focused on trends and driving forces of the leaf unfolding (LU) onset of oak and beech forests in the Slovak Carpathians along elevational gradients in the period 2000-2021. Particular attention was paid to improving the modelling of the LU onset using the MOD/MYD09 Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) products. The LU onset was derived from the annual Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) trajectories fitted with a double logistic function. An improved estimate of the onset was obtained by calculating 6 parameters of the logistic function and by comparing with the LU onset from phenological field observations. Between 2000 and 2021, we found a trend towards an earlier LU onset at the national level by ~0.39 day year -1 for oak stands (p = 0.13) and ~0.08 day year -1 for beech stands (p = 0.48). The analysis of trends in three elevation zones showed a difference in the LU onset of oak and beech stands as a function of elevation. For oak in 100-350 and 350-500 m zones was found a shift towards an earlier onset by ~0.41 day year -1 (p = 0.12). This corresponds to a shift of 8.6 days for the entire observation period 2000-2021. In the elevational zone above 500 m, the trend was milder, ~0.27 day year -1 (p = 0.21), i.e., 5.6 days for the entire analysed period. The shift towards an earlier onset at lower elevations and a later onset at higher elevations for beech was not statistically significant, with p-values between 0.44 and 0.51. The atypical year 2021, with the latest onset of LU during the entire observation period, fundamentally affected the significance of all trends. Nevertheless, the pixel-level analysis revealed a significant trend towards an earlier LU onset (p < 0.05) in 20.3% of oak stands. The same result was found only in 0.8% of beech stands. Strong negative correlations with R 2 = 0.72 for oak and R 2 = 0.81 for beech (p < 0.001) were found between the LU onset and March and April temperature deviations from the long-term normal. Temperature changes are the main driving force affecting the LU onset in the studied region.

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A warmer growing season triggers earlier following spring phenology

Cited by 3 publications

References 93 publications

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Trends and driving forces of spring phenology of oak and beech stands in the Western Carpathians from MODIS times series 2000-2021

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