Multi-century tree-ring anatomical evidence reveals increasing frequency and magnitude of spring discharge and floods in eastern boreal Canada

Nolin, Alexandre Florent; Tardif, Jacques; Conciatori, F.; Kames, Susanne; Meko, David M.; Bergeron, Yves

doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2021.103444

Cited by 20 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 93 publications

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“…First, F. nigra stands were sampled along the floodplain of Lake Duparquet (48 • 28'N, 79 • 17'W; at an approximate elevation of 260 m above sea level; Figure 1). These stands were described in numerous studies (Tardif andBergeron, 1992, 1999;Kames et al, 2016;Nolin et al, 2021a;Tardif et al, 2021). During extreme spring flood years like 1989 and 2019, F. nigra trees in the lower floodplain may have the lower portion of their stem remaining underwater into early July (Tardif, personal observation; Tardif et al, 2021).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Nonetheless, the hydroclimatic signal in ring-porous species growing in mesic and xeric habitats have often been said to belong essentially in the largest earlywood vessels (García-González and Fonti, 2006;Fonti et al, 2009a;García-González et al, 2016), while small earlywood vessels constitute noise (García-González and Fonti, 2006;González-González et al, 2015). This is largely contrasting with riparian species in which the hydroclimatic signal resides particularly in small earlywood vessels Kames et al, 2016;Nolin et al, 2021a). Studies [for example, refer to García-González and Fonti (2006), Fonti et al (2009a), andGonzález-González et al (2014)] recommending that small earlywood vessels, e.g., <6,000 or <10,000 µm 2 , be omitted to speed-up the development of ring-porous earlywood vessel chronologies "without any signal lost" have had an undetermined impact on knowledge acquisition in the field and especially when the environmental signal lies in small vessels.…”

Section: Earlywood Vessels and Non-riparian Ring-porous Tree Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Between 1981 and 2010, the mean annual temperature was 1 • C. The total annual precipitation was 985.2 mm with snowfall accounting for 28.5%. At Lake Duparquet, spring ice-breakup and subsequent flooding generally begin between mid-April and mid-May (Tardif and Bergeron, 1997a;Mongrain, 2014;Nolin et al, 2021a).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Novice dendrochronologists after receiving proper training can reliably identify them (Tardif et al, 2021 ). Flood rings were characterized through earlywood vessels with the abnormally small lumen in both white and green ash ( Fraxinus americana L. and Fraxinus pennsylvanica Marsh; Yanosky, 1983 ), in pedunculate oak ( Quercus robur L.; Astrade and Bégin, 1997 ; Sass-Klaassen, 2009 ; Sass-Klaassen et al, 2010 ; Copini et al, 2016 ), in bur oak ( Quercus macrocarpa Michx, St. George and Nielsen, 2000 , 2002 , 2003 ; Wertz et al, 2013 ; Therrell and Bialecki, 2015 ), in overcup oak ( Quercus lyrata Walt, Therrell and Bialecki, 2015 ; Meko and Therrell, 2020 ), and black ash ( Fraxinus nigra Marsh., Tardif et al, 2010 , 2021 ; Kames et al, 2016 ; Nolin et al, 2021a , b , accepted).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Results from these studies may relate to specific flood regimes but also to sampling at 1.3 m above ground level and/or neglecting small vessel measurements. At last, recent work has focused on developing long annually resolved measurement series of earlywood vessel attributes (Tardif et al, 2010 ; Kames et al, 2016 ) leading to a multi-century spring discharge reconstruction for northeastern boreal Canada (Nolin et al, 2021a ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Earlywood Vessels in Black Ash (Fraxinus nigra Marsh.) Trees Show Contrasting Sensitivity to Hydroclimate Variables According to Flood Exposure

et al. 2021

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In recent years, the utility of earlywood vessels anatomical characteristics in identifying and reconstructing hydrological conditions has been fully recognized. In riparian ring-porous species, flood rings have been used to identify discrete flood events, and chronologies developed from cross-sectional lumen areas of earlywood vessels have been used to successfully reconstruct seasonal discharge. In contrast, the utility of the earlywood vessel chronologies in non-riparian habitats has been less compelling. No studies have contrasted within species their earlywood vessel anatomical characteristics, specifically from trees that are inversely exposed to flooding. In this study, earlywood vessel and ring-width chronologies were compared between flooded and non-flooded control Fraxinus nigra trees. The association between chronologies and hydroclimate variables was also assessed. Fraxinus nigra trees from both settings shared similar mean tree-ring width but floodplain trees did produce, on average, thicker earlywood. Vessel chronologies from the floodplain trees generally recorded higher mean sensitivity (standard deviation) and lower autocorrelation than corresponding control chronologies indicating higher year-to-year variations. Principal components analysis (PCA) revealed that control and floodplain chronologies shared little variance indicating habitat-specific signals. At the habitat level, the PCA indicated that vessel characteristics were strongly associated with tree-ring width descriptors in control trees whereas, in floodplain trees, they were decoupled from the width. The most striking difference found between flood exposures related to the chronologies' associations with hydroclimatic variables. Floodplain vessel chronologies were strongly associated with climate variables modulating spring-flood conditions as well as with spring discharge whereas control ones showed weaker and few consistent correlations. Our results illustrated how spring flood conditions modulate earlywood vessel plasticity. In floodplain F. nigra trees, the use of earlywood vessel characteristics could potentially be extended to assess and/or mitigate anthropogenic modifications of hydrological regimes. In absence of major recurring environmental stressors like spring flooding, our results support the idea that the production of continuous earlywood vessel chronologies may be of limited utility in dendroclimatology.

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Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Earlywood Vessels and Non-riparian Ring-porous Tree Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Earlywood Vessels in Black Ash (Fraxinus nigra Marsh.) Trees Show Contrasting Sensitivity to Hydroclimate Variables According to Flood Exposure

et al. 2021

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Quantifying Terminal White Bands in Salix From the Yenisei River, Siberia and Their Relationship to Late-Season Flooding

Thaxton

Meko

Panyushkina

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Key Message Wood fiber cell wall thickness best characterizes white bands found at the end of certain growth rings in Salix alba. Evidence suggests these features are related to late-season hydrology. Abstract Recent, record-breaking discharge in the Yenisei River, Siberia, is part of a larger trend of increasing river flow in the Arctic driven by Arctic Amplification. These changes in magnitude and timing of discharge can lead to increased risk of extreme flood events, with implications for infrastructure, ecosystems, and climate. To better understand the effect of these changes on riparian tree growth along the lower reaches of the Yenisei River, we collected white willow (Salix alba) cross sections from a fluvial fill flat terrace that occasionally floods when water levels are extremely high. These samples displayed bands of lighter colored wood at the end of certain annual growth rings that we hypothesized were related to flood events. To identify the characteristics and causes of these features, we use an approach known as quantitative wood anatomy (QWA) to measure variation in fiber cell dimensions across tree rings, particularly fiber lumen area (LA) and cell wall thickness (CWT). We investigate (1) which cell parameters and method to extract intra-annual data from annual tree rings best capture terminal white bands identified in Salix, and (2) if these patterns are related to flood magnitude and/or duration. We find that fiber CWT best captures terminal white bands found in Salix rings. Time series derived from CWT measurements correlate with July water-level durations, but at levels too low to be labeled flooding. Although both terminal white bands and July flooding have reduced since 1980, questions remain as to the cause of terminal white bands. Understanding how riparian vegetation responds to changes in hydrology can help us better manage riparian ecosystems and understand the impacts of a changing Arctic hydrological regime.

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A 247‐year tree‐ring reconstruction of spring temperature and relation to spring flooding in eastern boreal Canada

Nolin

Girardin

Tardif

et al. 2022

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Few records of spring paleoclimate are available for boreal Canada, as biological proxies recording the beginning of the warm season are uncommon. Given the spring warming observed during the last decades, and its impact on snowmelt and hydrological processes, searching for spring climate proxies is receiving increasing attention. Tree-ring anatomical features and intra-annual widths were used to reconstruct the regional March to May mean air temperature from 1770 to 2016 in eastern boreal Canada. Nested principal component regressions calibrated on 116 years of gridded temperature data were developed from one Fraxinus nigra and 10 Pinus banksiana sites. The reconstruction indicated three distinct phases in spring temperature variability since 1770. Ample phases of multi-decadal warm and cold springs persisted until the end of the Little Ice Age (1850-1870 CE) and were gradually replaced since the 1940s by decadal to interannual variability associated with an increase in the frequency and magnitude of warm springs. Significant correlations with other paleotemperature records, gridded snow cover extent and runoff support that historical high flooding were associated with late, cold springs with heavy snow cover. Most of the high magnitude spring floods reconstructed for the nearby Harricana River also coincided with the lowest reconstructed spring temperature per decade. However, the last 40 years of observed and reconstructed mean spring temperature showed a reduction in the number of extreme cold springs contrasting with the last few decades of extreme flooding in the eastern Canadian boreal region. This result indicates that warmer late spring mean temperatures on average may contribute, among other factors, to advance the spring break-up and to likely shift the contribution of snow to rain in spring flooding processes.

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Multi-century tree-ring anatomical evidence reveals increasing frequency and magnitude of spring discharge and floods in eastern boreal Canada

Cited by 20 publications

References 93 publications

Earlywood Vessels in Black Ash (Fraxinus nigra Marsh.) Trees Show Contrasting Sensitivity to Hydroclimate Variables According to Flood Exposure

Earlywood Vessels in Black Ash (Fraxinus nigra Marsh.) Trees Show Contrasting Sensitivity to Hydroclimate Variables According to Flood Exposure

Quantifying Terminal White Bands in Salix From the Yenisei River, Siberia and Their Relationship to Late-Season Flooding

A 247‐year tree‐ring reconstruction of spring temperature and relation to spring flooding in eastern boreal Canada

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