Annual growth trends and response to weather of larch trees at Järvselja Training and Experimental Forest Center stands (Estonia)

Abstract

Larch is widely used in tree-ring studies, while tree-ring width and signature years provide information on environmental changes with annual resolution. The aim of the study was to build tree-ring (TR), early- (EW) and latewood (LW) width chronologies by larch species (Hybrid, European, Russian, Japanese, Kuril), and to study the response of the radial increment of larches to weather at Järvselja forest stands by using correlation, redundancy analysis, and the pointer year method. The increment cores were collected from 233 trees in Järvselja larch stands during autumn 2014. The increment cores were collected from 24 stands and divided into five groups by larch species. High EPS values (≥ 0.887) for the larch species in all groups indicate that a sufficient number of trees was included in the chronologies to be representable. The results show that different species have a similar sensitivity to various weather variables. Among the factors influencing the size of radial growth of larches were the weather conditions prevailing in the autumn of the previous year and the spring of the current year. An overall RDA revealed that 63.9% of tree growth variation in larch species was explained by the considered weather variables (F = 4.925,p< 0.001). The pointer year analysis distinguished between several common extreme pointer years by larch species; it revealed a significant response to the winter temperature and the temperature in spring. However, these weather characteristics are very complex and the causes that can affect tree growth may vary from year to year.

Synchronous Growth Releases in Peatland Pine Chronologies as an Indicator for Regional Climate Dynamics—A Multi-Site Study Including Estonia, Belarus and Sweden

“…Study area 3 in south Belarus was exceptional, since it was the only case when the correlation was positive for all PDSI diff variables. However, the number of sampled trees there (16) was the lowest of all the study areas ( Table 1).…”

“…Tree-ring data are useful for exploring the effects of soil moisture status and several other factors on tree and forest growth. High-frequency signals extracted from tree-ring series can be utilized to address relationships with short-term climatic variability, and a number of studies have identified links between temperature and precipitation on tree radial growth at an annual scale using ring-width data of various tree species in Estonia [14][15][16][17][18] and other countries in the Baltic region [19][20][21][22]. Low-frequency signals contained in ring-width series can be associated with tree size or age and various endogenous and exogenous disturbances [23].…”