Interactive effect of extreme climatic event and pollution load on growth and wood anatomy of spruce

Vejpustková, Monika; Čihák, Tomáš; Samusevich, Alina; Zeidler, Aleš; Novotný, Radek; Šrámek, Vít

doi:10.1007/s00468-016-1491-5

Cited by 6 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Territorial expansion of forest ecosystems, however, has not always been connected with improvements in forest condition. Significant political, economic, and social drivers during the 20th century, such as two world wars, the rise of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, economic competition of COMECON states with Western Europe, and finally the collapse of communism and economic transformation in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989 have caused extensive land use/land cover changes (LU/LCC) and influenced forest health conditions in many regions of Central Europe (Kandeler and Innes 1995, Lambert et al 1995, Olofsson et al 2011, Kolář et al 2015, Groisman et al 2017, Vejpustková et al 2017. The Ore Mountains are very rich in mineral deposits (various ores and brown coal; Rojík 2015), and thus have been exploited for centuries.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forest cover and disturbance changes, and their driving forces: A case study in the Ore Mountains, Czechia, heavily affected by anthropogenic acidic pollution in the second half of the 20th century

Kupková

Potůčková

Lhotáková

et al. 2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

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This study focuses on the assessment of forest cover and disturbance changes in the heavily polluted Ore Mountains (Czechia, Central Europe) during the second half of the 20th century and onward. It analyzes the driving forces of forest changes with reference to environmental, societal and political development in the region. Anthropogenic air pollution, prevalently SO 2 from adjacent coal-burning industry, caused extensive forest decline, especially between the 1970s and 1980s. The most affected tree species was the main economical timber species, Norway spruce, which proved to be remarkably pollution-sensitive. We used Landsat time series, and a combination of an integrated forest Z-score and Disturbance Index (DI), to analyze the forest cover change and disturbance development during 1985-2016. In 1994, the forest cover reached its minimum there. The breakdown of communism in the 1990s implied fulfilling EU pollution standards via air protection regulations, investment in power plant desulphurization, and forest management measures, which were the main drivers of the forest recovery. The forest recovery continued till about 2005; however, fluctuations in forest cover and DI have continued during the last decade. Apparently, forests weakened by old loads are prone to new stress factors. Landsat time series represent a powerful data source to monitor the impact of these drivers on forests on a regional scale. Originally, the severely damaged eastern part with heavier acidic load and large forest decline recovered faster after remarkable lowering of air pollution loads compared to the western part, with lower loads and less damaged forests. However, the interactions of persisting driving forces (soil acidification, adverse meteorological events, climate change factors, air pollution, tree species composition and physiological state, pest outbreaks) still threaten the forests there, which remain moderately damaged in both parts of the Ore Mountains. This may lead to unpredictable forest development independently of societal and political driving forces.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forest cover and disturbance changes, and their driving forces: A case study in the Ore Mountains, Czechia, heavily affected by anthropogenic acidic pollution in the second half of the 20th century

Kupková

Potůčková

Lhotáková

et al. 2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…With the political changes in 1989-1990, a strong revival of palynological research began on both the German and the Czech side of the Erzgebirge, which was primarily aimed at questions on the history of the environment, mires, mining, and settlements. In addition to some radiocarbondated pollen diagrams, such as from the raised bogs Georgenfeld (Stebich and Litt, 1997), Fláje/Fleyh (Jankovská et al, 2007), Boží Dar/Gottesgab (Veron et al, 2014), and Kovářská/Schmiedeberg (Bohdálková et al, 2018), as well as the deserted villages Spindelbach (Houfková et al, 2019) and Ullersdorf (Tolksdorf et al, 2020a), further diagrams are available but without radiocarbon data (e.g. Großer et al, 2006;Schwabenicky, 2009;Schlöffel, 2011).…”

Section: History Of Regional Palynological Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Dendrochronological dating has been used regularly in the Erzgebirge for several decades, mostly in the context of studies on building history, archaeology, forest ecology, and dendro-geomorphology (e.g. Spitzer, 2010;Hoffmann and Heußner, 2013;Tolksdorf and Schröder, 2016;Vejpustková et al, 2017;Vilímek et al, 2018). In particular, the ubiquitous use of construction wood since the Middle Ages for ore mines, ore processing facilities, and water management facilities has subfossilised huge amounts of wood in the region.…”

Section: Further Palaeobotanical Data Sources From the Regionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Holocene forest and land-use history of the Erzgebirge, central Europe: a review of palynological data

Kaiser

Theuerkauf

Hieke

2023

E&G Quaternary Sci. J.

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Abstract. The ongoing ecological conversion of mountain forests in central Europe from widespread Picea monocultures to mixed stands conceptually also requires a historical perspective on the very long-term, i.e. Holocene, vegetation and land-use dynamics. Detailed sources of information for this are palynological data. The Erzgebirge in focus here, with a maximum height of 1244 m a.s.l., represents an extreme case of extensive historical deforestation since the Middle Ages due to mining, metallurgy, and other industrial activities, as well as rural and urban colonisation. For this regional review we collected and evaluated 121 pollen diagrams of different stratigraphic, taxonomic, and chronological resolution. This number makes this region an upland area in central Europe with an exceptionally high density of palynological data. Using well-dated diagrams going back to the early Holocene, main regional vegetation phases were derived: the Betula–Pinus phase (ca. 11 600–10 200 cal yr BP), the Corylus phase (ca. 10 200–9000 cal yr BP), the Picea phase (ca. 9000–6000 cal yr BP), the Fagus–Picea phase (ca. 6000–4500 cal yr BP), the Abies–Fagus–Picea phase (ca. 4000–1000 cal yr BP), and the anthropogenic vegetation phase (ca. 1000–0 cal yr BP). Some diagrams show the presence or even continuous curves of potential pasture and meadow indicators from around 2000 cal BCE at the earliest. Even cereal pollen grains occur sporadically already before the High Medieval. These palynological indications of a local prehistoric human impact also in the higher altitudes find parallels in the (geo-)archaeologically proven Bronze Age tin placer mining and in the geochemically proven Iron Age metallurgy in the Erzgebirge. The pollen data show that immediately before the medieval clearing, i.e. beginning at the end of the 12th century CE, forests were mainly dominated by Fagus and Abies and complemented by Picea with increasing share towards the highest altitudes. According to historical data, the minimum of the regional forest cover was reached during the 17th–18th centuries CE. The dominance of Picea in modern pollen spectra is caused by anthropogenic afforestation in the form of monocultures since that time. Future palynological investigations, preferably within the framework of altitudinal transect studies, should aim for chronologically and taxonomically high-resolution and radiometrically well-dated pollen diagrams from the larger peatlands.

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“…This decrease in lumen area leads to a temporary increase in density, but reduced cell wall area ultimately leads to low density in the last 15% of the total ring width and the low MXD value in 1783 (Figure 7). Vejpustková et al (2017) found that lumen width, cell wall thickness, and cell number all decreased following an industrial SO 2 pollution event and Myśkow et al (2019) found that earlywood cell width and lumen area decreased during intense pollutant deposition.…”

Section: Abnormal Wood Anatomy Disrupts Mxd Temperature Signalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Origin of Tree‐Ring Reconstructed Summer Cooling in Northern Europe During the 18th Century Eruption of Laki

Edwards

Anchukaitis

Gunnarson

et al. 2022

Paleoceanog and Paleoclimatol

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Basaltic fissure eruptions, which are characteristic of Icelandic volcanism, are extremely hazardous due to the large quantities of gases and aerosols they release into the atmosphere. The 1783–1784 CE Laki eruption was one of the most significant high‐latitude eruptions in the last millennium and had substantial environmental and climatic impacts. Contemporary observations recorded the presence of a sulfuric haze over Iceland and Europe, which caused famine from vegetation damage and resulted in a high occurrence of respiratory illnesses and related mortality. Historical records in northern Europe show that the summer of 1783 was anomalously warm, but regional tree‐ring maximum latewood density (MXD) data from that year are low and lead to erroneously colder reconstructed summer temperatures. Here, we measure wood anatomical characteristics of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) from Jämtland, Sweden in order to identify the cause of this discrepancy. We show that the presence of intraannual density fluctuations in the majority of 1783 growth rings, a sudden reduction in lumen and cell wall area, and the measurement resolution of traditional X‐ray densitometry led to the observed reduced annual MXD value. Multiple independent lines of evidence suggest these anatomical anomalies were most likely the result of direct acidic damage to trees in Northern Europe and that the normal relationship between summer temperature and MXD can be disrupted by this damage. Our study also demonstrates that quantitative wood anatomy offers a high‐resolution approach to identifying anomalous years and extreme events in the tree‐ring record.

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Interactive effect of extreme climatic event and pollution load on growth and wood anatomy of spruce

Cited by 6 publications

References 26 publications

Forest cover and disturbance changes, and their driving forces: A case study in the Ore Mountains, Czechia, heavily affected by anthropogenic acidic pollution in the second half of the 20th century

Forest cover and disturbance changes, and their driving forces: A case study in the Ore Mountains, Czechia, heavily affected by anthropogenic acidic pollution in the second half of the 20th century

Holocene forest and land-use history of the Erzgebirge, central Europe: a review of palynological data

The Origin of Tree‐Ring Reconstructed Summer Cooling in Northern Europe During the 18th Century Eruption of Laki

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