scholarly journals Pointer Years in Tree-Ring Width of European Ash with Different Crown Condition and Their Relationships with Climatic Factors in Latvia

Author(s):  
Roberts Matisons ◽  
Linda Gerra Inohosa ◽  
Māris Laiviņš

Abstract The effect of climatic factors on tree-ring width (TRW) of European ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.) with healthy and damaged crowns growing in the central and eastern part of Latvia was assessed by dendrochronological techniques. Pointer year indices were calculated to assess the variability of TRW. Positive pointer years were more frequent than negative, similarly for damaged and healthy trees, suggesting similar limiting factors. The relationships between TRW and climatic factors differed regionally and locally. In the eastern part of Latvia, TRW was affected by temperature in spring of current and preceding years. In the central part of Latvia, weather conditions in current and preceding summer mainly affected TRW; temperature and precipitation had positive effect suggesting occurrence of water deficit, but the daily range of temperature had a negative effect. Hence, regional diversification of radial growth patterns might be expected. Some differences in sensitivity to climate were observed between the damaged and healthy trees. In the central part of Latvia, the damaged trees appeared additionally sensitive to temperature in summer. In the eastern part of Latvia, damaged trees were additionally sensitive to temperature in May. Nevertheless, some additional factors were significant for the healthy trees.

IAWA Journal ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-S5 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Alvites ◽  
G. Battipaglia ◽  
G. Santopuoli ◽  
H. Hampel ◽  
R.F. Vázquez ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTRelict tree species in the Andean mountains are important sources of information about climate variability and climate change. This study deals with dendroclimatology and growth patterns in Polylepis reticulata Hieron., growing at high elevation (mean of 4000 m a.s.l.) in three sites of the Ecuadorian Andes. The aims of the research were: (i) characterizing tree-ring boundaries; (ii) describing tree-ring patterns of the study sites; (iii) investigating the relationships between climate and radial tree growth; and (iv) determining the spatial correlation between seasonal climatic factors and tree-ring width of P. reticulata. Tree rings were characterized by semi-ring porosity and slight differences in fibre wall thickness between latewood and subsequent earlywood. In all sampling sites, tree rings in heartwood were more clearly visible than in sapwood. Tree-ring width was more related to temperature than to precipitation, with growth being also affected by site conditions and stand structure, as well as other local factors. No significant relationships were found between tree-ring chronologies of P. reticulata and El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Vapour Pressure Deficit indices. The study highlights that there is not a clear driving climate factor for radial growth of P. reticulata. Additional research is needed to study growth dynamics of this species and the impacts of local environmental variables.


2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Cedro ◽  
Wojciech Antkowiak

Abstract European wild pear (Pyrus pyraster, syn. Pyrus communis subsp. pyraster L.) is widely distributed in Europe, but rarely studied by dendrochronologists. This preliminary study was aimed to assess the age and effect of climate on tree-ring width in the largest Polish population of P. pyraster, in Biedrusko military area (western Poland). On the basis of samples from 21 trees, a chronology (BIE) was constructed, covering 45 years (1963–2007). Mean tree-ring width in the studied trees is 1.92 mm. The performed analyses (pointer years, correlations, and response function) indicate that tree-ring width is strongly dependent on weather conditions in the year preceding formation of the tree-ring. Annual rings of pear trees were wide after cold and rainy previous summer and after rainy previous October, while in the current year, ring width was affected by insolation in February and temperature in August (positive correlations) and precipitation in May (negative correlation). The low similarity of the ring-width pattern and effect of climate on tree-ring width between this population and a wild pear population from the Bielinek Reserve, located 200 km away, indicate that tree-ring width in this species is strongly dependent on habitat and there is a need to continue dendrochronological analyses.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Domen Arnič ◽  
Jožica Gričar ◽  
Jernej Jevšenak ◽  
Gregor Božič ◽  
Georg von Arx ◽  
...  

European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) adapts to local growing conditions to enhance its performance. In response to variations in climatic conditions, beech trees adjust leaf phenology, cambial phenology, and wood formation patterns, which result in different tree-ring widths (TRWs) and wood anatomy. Chronologies of tree ring width and vessel features [i.e., mean vessel area (MVA), vessel density (VD), and relative conductive area (RCTA)] were produced for the 1960–2016 period for three sites that differ in climatic regimes and spring leaf phenology (two early- and one late-flushing populations). These data were used to investigate long-term relationships between climatic conditions and anatomical features of four quarters of tree-rings at annual and intra-annual scales. In addition, we investigated how TRW and vessel features adjust in response to extreme weather events (i.e., summer drought). We found significant differences in TRW, VD, and RCTA among the selected sites. Precipitation and maximum temperature before and during the growing season were the most important climatic factors affecting TRW and vessel characteristics. We confirmed differences in climate-growth relationships between the selected sites, late flushing beech population at Idrija showing the least pronounced response to climate. MVA was the only vessel trait that showed no relationship with TRW or other vessel features. The relationship between MVA and climatic factors evaluated at intra-annual scale indicated that vessel area in the first quarter of tree-ring were mainly influenced by climatic conditions in the previous growing season, while vessel area in the second to fourth quarters of tree ring width was mainly influenced by maximum temperature and precipitation in the current growing season. When comparing wet and dry years, beech from all sites showed a similar response, with reduced TRW and changes in intra-annual variation in vessel area. Our findings suggest that changes in temperature and precipitation regimes as predicted by most climate change scenarios will affect tree-ring increments and wood structure in beech, yet the response between sites or populations may differ.


2002 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vidar Selås ◽  
Gianluca Piovesan ◽  
Jonathan M Adams ◽  
Mauro Bernabei

Time series of seed production and tree-ring width of Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) in southern Norway were analysed for their relationship to various climatic factors occurring during "key" stages, which a priori might be expected to show a strong climate response. The following factors combined in a multiple linear regression model were found to predict seed production (based on withheld data points) with considerable accuracy, at high levels of statistical significance: June–July mean temperature and August lowest temperature in the previous year, late spring frost and June–July precipitation of the last 2 years, and January–February lowest temperature in the current year. Tree ring width was negatively correlated with the seed production index of the current year and the lowest July temperature in the previous year and positively correlated with June-July precipitation in the current year. It is suggested that habitat constraints for seedling establishment should also be considered in a more general life-history cost theory to explain masting behaviour in forest trees.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Acevedo ◽  
Bijan Fallah ◽  
Sebastian Reich ◽  
Ulrich Cubasch

Abstract. We investigate the assimilation of Tree-Ring-Width (TRW) chronologies into an atmospheric global climate model using Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) techniques and a process-based tree-growth forward model as observation operator. Our results, within a perfect-model experiment setting, indicate that the non-linear response of tree-growth to surface temperature and soil moisture does deteriorate the operation of the time-averaged (EnKF) methodology. Moreover, this skill loss appeared significantly sensitive to the structure of growth rate function, used to represent the Principle of Limiting Factors (PLF)s within the forward model. On the other hand, it was observed that the error reduction achieved by assimilating a particular pseudo-TRW chronology is modulated by the strength of the yearly internal variability of the model at the chronology site. This result might help the dendrochronology community to optimize their sampling efforts. In our experiments, the ''online'' (with cycling) paleao Data Assimilation (DA) approach did not outperform the ''offline'' (no-cycling) one, despite its considerable additional implementation complexity.


Silva Fennica ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberts Matisons ◽  
Jānis Jansons ◽  
Juris Katrevičs ◽  
Āris Jansons

2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-402
Author(s):  
Shuai Yuan ◽  
Yonghong Zheng ◽  
Yongdong Qi ◽  
Fanxi Kong ◽  
Dan Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract Soil temperature can affect tree growth and is one of the most important types of basic data for forest cultivation and management. To obtain a long-term time series of soil temperatures, we explored the utility of dendroclimatology in a subtropical area of China. In this study, the relations between tree-ring-width chronologies and climate factors were explored by correlation analysis. The results indicated that the limiting climatic factors for the radial growth of Huangshan pine were elevation-specific. Further investigation found that chronology at high elevations was significantly correlated with soil temperature. Then, we described a reconstruction of the soil temperatures of the Dabie Mountains area using the tree-ring width chronology from 1869 to 2015 and showed that the reconstruction explained 42.9 percent of the instrumental soil temperature variation in the common years. We found that the 1970s and 2000s were the coldest and warmest decades since 1884, respectively. The results of the reconstruction method for describing past soil temperatures can provide a reference for other subtropical forests. Furthermore, the results of our research also have a certain significance for guiding policymaking related to forest cultivation and management.


Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhang ◽  
Zhang ◽  
Jiang ◽  
Bagila ◽  
Ainur ◽  
...  

The divergence problem, which manifests as an unstable response relationship between tree-ring growth and climatic factors under the background of global warming, poses a challenge to both the traditional theory of dendroclimatology and the reliability of climatic reconstructions based on tree-ring data. Although Schrenk spruce, as the dominant tree species in the Tianshan Mountains, is frequently applied in the dendrochronological studies, the understanding of the divergence problem of this tree species is still limited. This study conducted correlation analysis between climatic factors and tree-ring width chronologies from 51 living and healthy specimens of Schrenk spruce at sites of high and low elevation in the Alatau Mountains to determine the stability of the response. The results revealed that the tree-ring width of the spruce specimens was correlated positively with precipitation and correlated negatively with temperature. Although the variations of the two tree-ring chronologies were similar, the radial growth of the spruce at the low elevation was found more sensitive to climatic factors. Furthermore, the sensitivity of tree growth to climate demonstrated an obvious increase after an abrupt change of climate under the background of the recent warming and wetting trend. Increased drought stress, calculated based on climatic data, was regarded as the main reason for this phenomenon. The results supply the gap of the stability of climatic response of tree growth in Central Asia to some extent.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 545-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Acevedo ◽  
Bijan Fallah ◽  
Sebastian Reich ◽  
Ulrich Cubasch

Abstract. Paleoclimate data assimilation (DA) is a promising technique to systematically combine the information from climate model simulations and proxy records. Here, we investigate the assimilation of tree-ring-width (TRW) chronologies into an atmospheric global climate model using ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) techniques and a process-based tree-growth forward model as an observation operator. Our results, within a perfect-model experiment setting, indicate that the "online DA" approach did not outperform the "off-line" one, despite its considerable additional implementation complexity. On the other hand, it was observed that the nonlinear response of tree growth to surface temperature and soil moisture does deteriorate the operation of the time-averaged EnKF methodology. Moreover, for the first time we show that this skill loss appears significantly sensitive to the structure of the growth rate function, used to represent the principle of limiting factors (PLF) within the forward model. In general, our experiments showed that the error reduction achieved by assimilating pseudo-TRW chronologies is modulated by the magnitude of the yearly internal variability in the model. This result might help the dendrochronology community to optimize their sampling efforts.


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