Predicting tree growth processes is important due to the exceptional ecosystem role of forests, which carry out global climate regulation by sequestrating carbon, conserving drinking water, and providing habitat for living organisms. Trees are known to respond to any fluctuations in the environment. The research purpose is to identify weather and climatic factors that significantly affect the inhibition of growth of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) in conditions of constant moisture deficit. The studies were carried out in the eastern part of the Bryansk region within the territory the Bryansk administrative district, in the educational and experimental forestry of the Bryansk State Engineering and Technological University and the Styazhnovskoye forest district. Methods of dendrochronology were used to assess the response of 93 pine trees to fluctuations in the external environment by changing the width of annual rings (available anatomical feature of a tree) using indices of radial growth. An original approach was proposed to analyze the reasons for a sharp decline in the annual radial growth under the influence of temperature and precipitation. The years with abnormally low increments (1963, 1972, 1985, 2002 and 2010) were identified against the background of the weather-climatic situation for 5 years before and after the fall in growth. Similar dynamics of absolute values of radial increments and their indices was established, which is caused by fluctuations of natural factors, manifestation of hereditary traits, etc. Significant differences were revealed between the growth rates at average multiyear values of January, May and August air temperatures with growth rates in the years of abnormally low radial growth, which are observed in pine against the background of colder January and warmer May and August of the current year, as well as under the condition of warmer January of the previous year. At the same time, no significant role of precipitation was detected. The obtained data, expanding the idea of the features of growth processes and formation of annual increments in diameter of Scots pine in the conditions of changing climate at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries, allowed us to suggest a possible manifestation of physiological features of the species, the homeostasis optimum zone of which is located in the conditions of colder boreal climate. This information expands our understanding of the features of growth processes and formation of annual increments in diameter of Scots pine in changing climatic conditions.
Radial Growth Response of European Larch Provenances to Interannual Climate Variation in Poland
