Implications of Liebig’s Law of the Minimum for Tree-Ring Reconstructions of Climate
A basic principle of ecology, known as Liebig's Law of the Minimum, is that plant growth reflects the strongest limiting environmental factor. This principle implies that a limiting environmental factor can be inferred from historical growth and, in dendrochronology, such reconstruction is gene...
| Published in: | Environmental Research Letters |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
IOP Publishing
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:40992635 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa8cd6 |
| Summary: | A basic principle of ecology, known as Liebig's Law of the Minimum, is that plant growth reflects the strongest limiting environmental factor. This principle implies that a limiting environmental factor can be inferred from historical growth and, in dendrochronology, such reconstruction is generally achieved by averaging collections of standardized tree-ring records. Averaging is optimal if growth reflects a single limiting factor and noise but not if growth also reflects locally variable stresses that intermittently limit growth. In this study a collection of Arctic tree ring records is shown to follow scaling relationships that are inconsistent with the signal-plus-noise model of tree growth but consistent with Liebig's Law acting at the local level. Also consistent with law-of-the-minimum behavior is that reconstructions based on the least-stressed trees in a given year better-follow variations in temperature than typical approaches where all tree-ring records are averaged. Improvements in reconstruction skill occur across all frequencies, with the greatest increase at the lowest frequencies. More comprehensive statistical-ecological models of tree growth may offer further improvement in reconstruction skill. Accepted Manuscript |
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