Exploring the impact of regional climate and local hydrology on Pinus sylvestris L. growth variability – A comparison between pine populations growing on peat soils and mineral soils in Lithuania

Abstract

Aims To compare growth variability of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) on different soil types, and to assess the potential of peat-soil pines for climatological and hydrological studies. Methods We used extensive dendrochronological analyses to investigate temporal and spatial responses of pines growing on peat soils and mineral soils in three regions of Lithuania. Results Significant correlations were observed between tree populations growing on similar soil types in different geographical regions, whereas synchronicity was absent between neighbouring stands growing on different soil types. At mineral soils, tree growth was significantly correlated with winter and early summer temperatures, whereas a more complex response was detected in peat-soil trees, presumably reflecting a multiannual synthesis of moisture variability and changing hydrology. Synchronous long-term peat soil tree-growth variations observed over large parts of the Baltics point to a possible regional hydrological forcing. Our results may therefore improve hydrological reconstructions using living and subfossil peat-soil trees, and could be of prime importance given the major influence peatland water-table fluctuations have on a range of environmental processes. Conclusion Results reveal that peat-soil pines are unsuitable for high-frequency climate reconstruction, but demonstrate their potential for the reconstruction of multi-annual to decadal hydrological fluctuations. Mineral-soil pines, by contrast, should be used for temperature reconstructions.

Rereading a tree-ring database to illustrate depositional histories of subfossil trees

“…These discrepancies may imply spatially restricted responses in hydrological cycle, peatland vegetation, or both, to climatic shifts of continental scale. In addition, the northern location of the Finnish site has possibly made the trees more sensitive to temperature variability in comparison to the Lithuanian sites, which at present show tree-growth response associated to a mixture of pre-growth season temperature and long-term hydrological changes (Edvardsson et al, 2015). We concur with the previously set target for developing continuous annually resolved moisture-sensitive tree-ring records for the same region (Edvardsson et al, 2016).…”

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

“…Peatland ecosystems are characterized by high soil moisture and partially decomposed vegetation accumulated as peat in soil layers [1]. Hydrological variability of peatlands depends on various climatic factors and affects peatland vegetation and carbon storage dynamics [2][3][4]. Even in their natural state, peatlands are considered complex and dynamic ecosystems, but peatland management or land-use changes may induce even more rapid shifts affecting local hydrology [1].…”

Quantifying climate–growth relationships at the stand level in a mature mixed‐species conifer forest

“…However, quantifying climate–growth relationships in forest systems presents numerous challenges due to the diverse factors that influence tree growth response. For example, response to climate varies among tree species (Drobyshev, Gewehr, Berninger, & Bergeron, ; Friedrichs et al., ), among canopy positions (Martín‐Benito, Cherubini, Del Río, & Cañellas, ), among individuals within a tree species (Foster, Finley, D'Amato, Bradford, & Banerjee, ), by tree size or age (Foster et al., ; Mérian & Lebourgeois, ), across competition gradients (Sánchez‐Salguero et al., ), across a range of stand densities (D'Amato, Bradford, Fraver, & Palik, ), among soil conditions (Edvardsson et al., ; Gewehr, Drobyshev, Berninger, & Bergeron, ), and among elevations (Primicia et al., ). In addition, within a given site, gradual changes in stand development interact with climate to govern long‐term variability in tree growth (Kardol, Todd, Hanson, & Mulholland, ; Primicia et al., ).…”