Declining pine growth in Central Spain coincides with increasing diurnal temperature range since the 1970s

• Published in: Global and Planetary Change
• Main Authors: Büntgen, U., Martínez-Peña, Fernando, Aldea, Jorge, Rigling, A., Fischer, E. M., Camarero, Jesús Julio, Hayes, M. J., Fatton, V., Egli, S.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2013
• Subjects: North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/82583; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2013.05.013

Growing evidence suggests environmental change to be most severe across the semi-arid subtropics, with past, present and projected drying of the Mediterranean Basin posing a key multidisciplinary challenge. Consideration of a single climatic factor, however, often fails to explain spatiotemporal growth dynamics of drought-prone ecosystems. Here, we present annually resolved and absolutely dated ring width measurements of 871 Scots pines (Pinus sylvestris) from 18 individual plot sites in the Central Spanish Pinar Grande forest reserve. Although comprising tree ages from 6 to 175years, this network correlates surprisingly well with the inverse May-July diurnal temperature range (r=0.84; p<0.00011956-2011). Ring width extremes were triggered by pressure anomalies of the North Atlantic Oscillation, and the long-term growth decline coincided with Iberian-wide drying since the mid-1970s. Climate model simulations not only confirm this negative trend over the last decades but also project drought to continuously increase over the 21st century. Associated ecological effects and socio-economic consequences should be considered to improve adaptation strategies of agricultural and forest management, as well as biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. Supported by the WSL-internal DITREC project, the Eva Mayr-Stihl Foundation, the project AGL2012-40035-C03-01 (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of Spain, Secretaría de Estado de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación), the Micosylva project (Interreg IVB SUDOE SOE1/P2/E069), and the Government of Castilla y León. Staff of CIF Valonsadero contributed to the network maintenance, and the Czech project “Building up a multidisciplinary scientific team focused on drought” (No. CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0248). Peer reviewed