Hydraulic properties and fine root mass of Larix sibirica along forest edge-interior gradients

Long‐term forest resilience to climate change indicated by mortality, regeneration, and growth in semiarid southern Siberia

“…Meanwhile, results also showed an increase in regeneration ability with relatively higher amounts of soil seeds, seedlings, and saplings than those on the other two sites. A high mortality ratio and strong correlation between PDSI diff and disturbance indicated that forest canopies on the KHO site were easily disturbed by drought, which could have altered the site conditions with increased light availability and reduced competition stress on young trees, which further favors the regeneration process (Wu et al ., ; Chenlemuge et al ., ; Elkin et al ., ). These kinds of disturbance could not induce regeneration peaks, but could force the trees to keep recruiting.…”

“…Similar to alpine regions, continuous forests here are fragmented into forest patches within the arid timberline ecotone, and water‐deficit stress along the aridity gradient can cause a further shift to a sparse savanna‐like pattern beyond the aridity limits for forest vegetation, which is considered as arid tree line (Stevens & Fox, ). Water limitations and the highly fragmented landscapes with forest patches of various sizes coaffect tree growth sensitivity to a changing climate (Vygodskaya et al ., ; Dulamsuren et al ., , ; Chenlemuge et al ., ). Parts of Inner Asia, including southern Siberia, have recently experienced rapid warming with increasingly frequent and severe drought events, and this warming pattern is projected to continue into the future (Li et al ., ; Sheffield et al ., ; Liu et al ., ).…”

“…However, little is known about whether semiarid forests here can regenerate effectively to compensate for the reported increasing tree mortality under climate warming. Likewise, although climatic influence on forest mortality or regeneration has been studied in several previous works, the effects of forest patch size, an important determinant of the forest interior environment and tree growth in semiarid regions (Chenlemuge et al ., ), have been relatively less thoroughly studied. Thus, the resilience pattern along continuous forests, arid timberline forests, and arid tree line forests remains unclear.…”

Higher climate warming sensitivity of Siberian larch in small than large forest islands in the fragmented Mongolian forest steppe

“…Although we have no systematic data of forest fires from our sample plots, it was obvious during field work that fire had not been restricted to small forest patches, but even had occurred in the large forests, which are more often visited by people for the collection of berries and pine nuts. Selective logging as is commonly practiced in Mongolia leads to reduced stand density, which improves the water supply of the remaining trees (Dulamsuren, Hauck & Leuschner, ; Chenlemuge et al., ) and thus should increase their tolerance to drought episodes. Clear‐cuts and large forest fires, however, cause permafrost melt with a transient increase, but long‐term decrease, of soil moisture (Yoshikawa, Bolton, Romanovsky, Fukuda, & Hinzman, ).…”

“…Therefore, stand density is generally inversely correlated with water availability (McDowell & Allen, 2015). This was also shown in the boreal forest of Mongolia, where trees at forest edges with reduced stand density had less tense water relations and higher tree ring widths than in the forest interior Dulamsuren, Hauck, Khishigjargal, et al 2010;Chenlemuge et al, 2015). The influence of other stand-structural characteristics on the climate warming sensitivity of forests is much less explored.…”