Environmental niche and distribution of six deciduous tree species in the Spanish Atlantic region

Abstract

© iForest -Biogeosciences and Forestry IntroductionThe temperate mid-latitude ecozone of the northern hemisphere is mainly distributed in the Atlantic regions of North America and Europe and also in central Europe (Schultz 2005). The climax vegetation of this ecozone consists of temperate deciduous forests, which dominate from sea level to the subalpine zone. These ecosystems comprise some of the main components of European landscapes (Meeus 1995) and provide the society with important flow of services (MA 2005, Harrison et al. 2010). The main ecosystem services provided by forests are regulation processes, such as soil protection, climate, etc., although provision of cultural services is also important.The distribution of tree species in Europe is mainly determined by climatic factors (Svenning & Skov 2004, despite the effect of historical factors such as the presence of glacial refuges (Muñoz Sobrino et al. 2006, Willner et al. 2009) and naturalization of species beyond their former range. The dominant forest tree species in the temperate mid-latitude ecozone are taxonomically related, most belonging to the Fagaceae family. These species require a minimum of 120 days per year with an average temperature above 10 °C, and most of them grow in areas where winter is shorter than 4 months (Walter 1979) and frost damage is a secondary factor. Although it has been suggested that minimum temperature is one of the main determinants for the growth and development of native trees (Sykes et al. 1996), other climatic variables and soil factors are also expected to shape the distribution of tree species (Ashcroft et al. 2011).Several attempts have been made to characterize the ecological niche and spatial distribution of forest tree species in Europe (Sykes et al. 1996, Brus et al. 2011, Casalegno et al. 2011. However, biogeographical regions differ in terms of historical and climatic factors. A better understanding of species-environment relationships requires data sources spanning over large areas with high spatial resolution (e.g., National Forest Inventories -NFI), to be used for the development of climatic models, with the aim of analyzing particular areas and assessing the influence of environmental conditions. Computing species distribution models (SDMsGuisan & Thuiller 2005, Elith & Leathwick 2009) applied on such data may be especially useful for defining the environmental niche of tree species and for assessing their potential distribution at regional scales.In this study, we applied SDMs on species occurrence data from the Spanish NFI to compare the climatic niche of six European tree species in the Atlantic region, at the southern distribution limit of temperate deciduous forests in Europe. The studied region is characterized by an oceanic and relatively warm climate and representing a unique environmental zone in Europe (the Lusitanian zone, according to Metzger et al. 2005). The study area was the Autonomous Community of Asturias, one of the most densely forested areas of the Iberian peninsula, where deciduous...

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