Tree growth-climate relationships in a forest-plot network on Mediterranean mountains

Fyllas, Nikolaos M.; Christopoulou, Anastasia; Galanidis, Alexandros; Michelaki, Chrysanthi; Dimitrakopoulos, Panayiotis G.; Fulé, Peter Z.; Arianoutsou, Margarita

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.04.145

Cited by 43 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 76 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…This implies that the summer precipitation of the current year is the single most important factor affecting tree growth, which in turn is a consequence of the low soil water storage capacity in our study sites substantially diminishing the effect of meteorological conditions in the previous months. The temperature showed significant negative correlations in May and August of the current year being an important factor in summer moisture availability, as also suggested by e.g., Fyllas et al [64].…”

Section: Climate-growth Relationshipsupporting

confidence: 83%

Recent Drought-Induced Vitality Decline of Black Pine (Pinus nigra Arn.) in South-West Hungary—Is This Drought-Resistant Species under Threat by Climate Change?

Móricz

Garamszegi

Rasztovits

et al. 2018

Forests

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper analyses the recent recurring dieback and growth decline of Black pine (P. nigra Arn. var austriaca) in the Keszthely mountains of south-west Hungary, and their relations to water deficits due to droughts. These relations were studied in five stands with low soil water storage capacity for the period 1981-2016. The vitality was assessed using 60 tree-ring samples and changes in remotely sensed vegetation activity indices, i.e., the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and the normalized difference infrared index (NDII). Water deficit was estimated by using meteorological drought indices such the standardized precipitation-evapotranspiration index (SPEI) and the forestry aridity index (FAI), as well as the relative extractable water (REW), calculated by the Brook90 hydrological model. Results revealed a strong dependency of annual tree ring width on the amount of water deficit as measured by all the above estimators, with the highest correlation shown by the summer REW. Droughts also showed a long-term superimposed effect on tree growth. NDII seemed to be more sensitive to drought conditions than NDVI. The robust dependency of tree growth on the summer water availability combined with the projected increasing aridity might lead to decreasing growth of Black pine in Hungary towards the end of the century. We thus argue that the suggestion by several papers that Black pine can be a possible substitute species in the Alpine and Mediterranean region in the future should be revisited.

show abstract

Section: Climate-growth Relationshipsupporting

confidence: 83%

Recent Drought-Induced Vitality Decline of Black Pine (Pinus nigra Arn.) in South-West Hungary—Is This Drought-Resistant Species under Threat by Climate Change?

Móricz

Garamszegi

Rasztovits

et al. 2018

Forests

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Sensitivity of beech growth to winter cold is presently seldom reported in dendroecological research. Some multisite studies also include montane to subalpine beech populations and locally detected growth sensitivity to winter cold for Central European high altitude sites and the Pyrenees (Dittmar et al., ), the Eastern Alps (Di Filippo et al., ), the Carpathians (Kern & Popa, ; Roibu et al., ) and the southern Balkans (Fyllas et al., ). However, the authors often do not further explore their findings of locally important winter cold sensitivity, but rather focus on the drought sensitivity of beech, which is more important at the regional level (Dittmar et al., ; Fyllas et al., ; Roibu et al., ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Winter matters: Sensitivity to winter climate and cold events increases towards the cold distribution margin of European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.)

Weigel

Muffler

Klisz

et al. 2018

Journal of Biogeography

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Aim:The dominant forest tree in Europe, European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.), covers large areas of continental Europe and thus experiences diverse climatic conditions. In the face of predicted climate change and shifts of distribution ranges, it is important to understand the diverse climate-growth relationships towards distribution margins. Beech is generally reported to be sensitive to summer drought towards dry and continental regions; yet, few studies have investigated climate sensitivity towards the cold distribution margin of beech. We hypothesized that at colder sites (a) growth of beech is more sensitive to winter cold, (b) growth is less influenced by summer drought, and (c) stand-wide growth reductions (negative pointer years) are related to extreme winter cold events.Taxon: European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.). Location:A large gradient of decreasing winter temperature (ΔT >4 K along 500 km) from Rostock (Germany) to Gdańsk (Poland). Methods:We analysed climate-growth relationships and the nature of growth reductions of 11 beech stands from more central to cold marginal beech populations.Results: Towards the cold marginal populations, growth became increasingly sensitive to winter cold (February temperature) and less sensitive to summer water availability (June precipitation). Likewise, negative pointer years coincided with winter cold anomalies at the colder sites and with summer drought anomalies at the warmer sites. Thus, over the studied gradient, the general sensitivity of beech to summer drought transitions into sensitivity to winter cold. Main conclusions:A range shift of beech across the current cold distribution margin is often assumed to compensate for habitat and productivity losses of droughtprone southern and central populations. With respect to the winter cold sensitivity found in our study, such assumptions should be taken with caution. Since winter cold events are predicted to persist with similar frequency and magnitude even during predicted climate warming, beech populations in the newly colonized habitat might be significantly sensitive to winter cold.

show abstract

“…The study extended across 61 plots of the MEDIT network (Fyllas et al, 2017b) and covered the most important mountains of continental Greece in terms of both species diversity and ecosystem productivity (Supplementary Figure S1). Sites sampled covered an altitudinal range from 374 m above sea level (asl) at Mount Olympos to 1665 m asl at Mount Parnassos, with mean annual temperatures (T A ) varying from 5.9 (1516 m asl at Mount Rodopi) to 15.0 • C (470 m asl at Mount Parnitha), and with mean annual precipitations (P A ) ranging from 0.37 (470 m asl at Mount Parnitha) to 1.1 m (1358 m asl at Mount Pindos) ( Supplementary Table S1).…”

Section: Study Plots and Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional Trait Variation Among and Within Species and Plant Functional Types in Mountainous Mediterranean Forests

et al. 2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Plant structural and biochemical traits are frequently used to characterise the life history of plants. Although some common patterns of trait covariation have been identified, recent studies suggest these patterns of covariation may differ with growing location and/or plant functional type (PFT). Mediterranean forest tree/shrub species are often divided into three PFTs based on their leaf habit and form, being classified as either needleleaf evergreen (Ne), broadleaf evergreen (Be), or broadleaf deciduous (Bd). Working across 61 mountainous Mediterranean forest sites of contrasting climate and soil type, we sampled and analysed 626 individuals in order to evaluate differences in key foliage trait covariation as modulated by growing conditions both within and between the Ne, Be, and Bd functional types. We found significant differences between PFTs for most traits. When considered across PFTs and by ignoring intraspecific variation, three independent functional dimensions supporting the Leaf-Height-Seed framework were identified. Some traits illustrated a common scaling relationship across and within PFTs, but others scaled differently when considered across PFTs or even within PFTs. For most traits much of the observed variation was attributable to PFT identity and not to growing location, although for some traits there was a strong environmental component and considerable intraspecific and residual variation. Nevertheless, environmental conditions as related to water availability during the dry season and to a smaller extend to soil nutrient status and soil texture, clearly influenced trait values. When compared across species, about half of the trait-environment relationships were species-specific. Our study highlights the importance of the ecological scale within which trait covariation is considered and suggests that at regional to local scales, common trait-by-trait scaling relationships should be treated with caution. PFT definitions by themselves can potentially be an important predictor variable when inferring one trait from another. These findings have important implications for local scale dynamic vegetation models.

show abstract

Tree growth-climate relationships in a forest-plot network on Mediterranean mountains

Cited by 43 publications

References 76 publications

Recent Drought-Induced Vitality Decline of Black Pine (Pinus nigra Arn.) in South-West Hungary—Is This Drought-Resistant Species under Threat by Climate Change?

Recent Drought-Induced Vitality Decline of Black Pine (Pinus nigra Arn.) in South-West Hungary—Is This Drought-Resistant Species under Threat by Climate Change?

Winter matters: Sensitivity to winter climate and cold events increases towards the cold distribution margin of European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.)

Functional Trait Variation Among and Within Species and Plant Functional Types in Mountainous Mediterranean Forests

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About