Climate Change and its Impacts on Growth of Blue Pine (Pinus wallichiana) in Murree Forest Division, Pakistan

Abstract

Climate change and its impacts were assessed on growth of Blue pine, Pinus wallichiana in Murree Forest Division. Change in temperature (maximum, minimum, mean) and precipitation was assessed for time period of 1963-2012 at 50×50 km 2 (0.5°×0.5°). Growth of P. wallichiana was measured in terms of ring-width, intra-ring early and late wood formation. The regime of maximum temperature, minimum temperature and mean temperature were estimated and found 26.45±0.08°C, 13.40±0.08°C and 19.90±0.07°C, respectively, while the precipitation regime was 1148.79±32.87 mm/annum. An increase of 0.60, 1.27 and 0.98°C was observed in maximum temperature, minimum temperature and mean temperature, respectively. Precipitation increased to 28.88% during time period of 50 years. The mean ring-width, intra-ring early and late wood formation was 1.05 mm, 66.2 and 33.8%, respectively. The ring-width and intra-ring late wood formation increased by 5.09 and 2.57%, respectively, while the intra-ring early wood formation decreased by 1.28%. The impact of minimum temperature was significant (0.05) on the ring-width. There was a positive but non-significant correlation between temperature (maximum, minimum, mean) and positive and highly significant (p<0.01) correlation between precipitation and ring-width. The intra-ring early wood formation showed negative correlation with maximum temperature and precipitation, while intra-ring late wood formation showed negative correlation with mean temperature and with intra-ring early wood formation. Ring-width and intra-ring wood formation provided better prediction of impacts of climate change on growth of P. wallichiana.

Evaluation of Some Man-Made Forests at Al-Jabal Al-Akhdar in Libya

“…In additions, Sensula and Wilczynski,(2017) suggested that the surface temperature impacts on water-use efficiency in P. sylvestris and surged CO 2 emission is involved. The thickness of annual ring of P. wallichiana wassignificantly correlated with precipitation rate (Bajwa et al, 2015)and of P. sylvestris (Pritzkow et al, 2014)and particularly during June to July (Cedro , 2001), but not in all sites she inspected , notably so humid stands . Not in all times,here the positive impacts of precipitation and temperature on the growth of P. halepensis, P. pinaster , P. sylvestris even Fagus sylvatica, yet it is likely in the future, the rainfall impact on the growth (Sabate et al, 2002).…”

“…The impact of temperature on the growth of pine generally is significant in many studies and according to the model presented by Salminen and Jalkanen (2005), the increase of temperature by 1.0°C in July has brought about an increase in height by 1.8 cm in the next year in P. sylvestris. Bajwa et al (2015) found a positive, yet insignificant correlation between temperature with ring width and Hordo et al (2009) considered the temperature is the most important single agent in terms of growth activity for P. sylvestris, when they were tracing increment ring width extreme temperature, yet Gonzales-Benecke et al,(2017), in addition to temperature impact,stated that an elevated CO 2 contributed significantly in increase in the growth of P. taeda.…”

“…The growth dynamic of the tree and its relation with the environmental aspects has been received a considerable attention. Furthermore,the dendrochronology of P. halepensis and other trees species was undertaken by many investigators, i. e., by analyzing the annual increment rings of the wood and coincidently with the environmental condition impacted its thickness, notably temperature (Salminen and Jalkanen, 2005,Hordo et al 2009, Bajwa et al 2015and Gonzales-Benecke et al 2017.…”

“…The precipitation or rain fall rate has an influence on the thickness of the increment growth rings (late-and early-wood thickness) in some trees (Cedro , 2001, Sabate et al, 2002Pritzkow et al, 2014, Bogino et al, 2009and Bajwa et al, 2015 and effect of water availability on the girth growth of P. halepensis Olivar et al, (2014) and in other pine species (Moore et al, 2006 ;Vittoz et al, 2008 andBogino et al, 2009).…”

Ecological Wood Anatomy of Pinus roxburghii in Central Nepal

“…Several studies have been conducted on these pine species from different parts of the Himalayas. Dendrochronological studies have also been carried out to determine the impact of climate change on growth of P. wallichiana (Bajwa et al, 2015). Similar work was conducted on P. roxburghii to understand age, structure, soil erosion, disturbance history and tree health (Speer et al, 2016).…”