Dendroecological reconstructions of forest disturbance history using time-series analysis with intervention detection

Abstract

Abstract:The detection of release events in the annual growth increments of trees has become a central and widely applied method for reconstructing the disturbance history of forests. While numerous approaches have been developed for identifying release events, the preponderance of these methods relies on running means that compare the percent change in growth rates. These methods do not explicitly account for the autocorrelation present within tree-ring width measurements and may introduce spurious events. This paper utilizes autoregressive integrated moving-average (ARIMA) processes to model tree-ring time series and incorporates intervention detection to identify pulse and step outliers as well as changes in trends indicative of a deterministic exogenous influence on past growth. This approach is evaluated by applying it to three chronologies from the Forest Responses to Anthropogenic Stress (FORAST) project that were impacted by prior disturbance events. The examples include a hemlock (Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carrière) chronology from New Hampshire, a white pine (Pinus strobus L.) chronology from Pennsylvania, and an American beech (Fagus grandifolia Ehrh.) chronology from Virginia. All three chronologies exhibit a clustering of step, pulse, and trend interventions subsequent to a known or likely disturbance event. Time-series analysis offers an alternative approach for identifying prior forest disturbances via tree rings based on statistical methods applicable across species and disturbance regimes.Résumé : La détection des épisodes de dégagement dans les accroissements annuels des arbres est devenue une mé-thode essentielle et largement appliquée pour reconstituer l'historique des perturbations dans les forêts. Alors que plusieurs approches ont été développées pour identifier les épisodes de dégagement, la prépondérance de ces méthodes repose sur des moyennes mobiles qui comparent le pourcentage de variation dans le taux de croissance. Ces méthodes ne tiennent pas explicitement compte de l'autocorrélation présente dans les mesures de largeur de cernes. Cet article utilise un processus autorégressif de moyennes mobiles intégrées pour modéliser les chronoséquences et incorpore (ARIMA) la détection des interventions pour identifier les impulsions et les observations aberrantes ainsi que les variations de tendance qui indiquent une influence déterministe exogène sur la croissance passée. Cette approche est évaluée pour trois courbes dendrochronologiques du projet « Forest Responses to Anthropogenic Stress » (FORAST) qui ont été affectées par des perturbations antérieures. Les exemples incluent des courbes dendrochronologiques de la pruche occidentale (Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carrière) provenant du New Hampshire, du pin blanc (Pinus strobus L.) provenant de la Pennsylvanie et du hêtre à grandes feuilles (Fagus grandifolia Ehrh.) provenant de la Virginie. Ces trois courbes montrent un regroupement de marches, d'impulsions et d'interventions subséquemment à un épisode connu ou probable de perturbation. L'analyse des ...

Stand- and tree-level determinants of the drought response of Scots pine radial growth

“…The maximum order of the fitted ARIMA models was limited to p = 1, d = 1, q = 1, as higher order models are much more difficult to interpret and are rare in tree ring time series (cf. Downing and McLaughlin 1992;Druckenbrod 2005). ARIMA models were successfully fitted to 1,382 out of 1,433 individual tree time series.…”

Causation of false ring formation in Pinus banksiana: A comparison of age, canopy class, climate and growth rate

“…One of the more highly debated, but essential techniques in this process is the identification of gap-triggered releases in ring width patterns. The scientific literature is awash with techniques developed to separate gap-triggered growth releases from climate-initiated growth releases (Lorimer and Frelich, 1989;Nowacki and Abrams, 1997;Wu et al, 1999;Abrams, 2003, 2004;Druckenbrod, 2005;Fraver and White, 2005). These various techniques for identifying growth releases have been applied to many different species across a wide geographic range and have proven to be a useful tool for interpreting disturbance regimes (Cao and Ohkubo, 1999;Abrams et al, 2000;Copenheaver et al, 2002;Rozas, 2003).…”

Propriétés des critères des lignes limites de dégagement chez les arbres Nord Américains

“…Since that time, additional criteria have been developed, including an approach that utilizes time-series analysis to identify pulses, steps, and other changes in tree-ring measurement time series that could represent disturbance events (Druckenbrod, 2005), a "divergence method," that differentiates fine-scale from regional-scale disturbances (Thompson et al, 2007), and an "absolute-increase method" in which growth subsequent to an event is subtracted from growth prior to an event, indirectly incorporating the effects of prior growth on release response to distinguish disturbance events (Fraver and White, 2005). These release criteria vary widely, and each was formulated to accommodate a specific set of objectives for the species involved (Black and Abrams, 2004;Rubino and McCarthy, 2004).…”