Droughts Are Not the Likely Primary Cause for Abies sibirica and Pinus sibirica Forest Dieback in the South Siberian Mountains

• Published in: Forests
• Main Authors: Nadezhda M. Tchebakova, Elena I. Parfenova, Elena V. Bazhina, Amber J. Soja, Pavel Ya. Groisman
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 2022
• Subjects: boreal dark-needled forests; drought index SPEI; annual moisture index AMI; damaged stands; precipitation; potential evapotranspiration; taiga
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3390/f13091378

Background. Since the mid-20th century, massive dieback of coniferous forests has been observed in the temperate and boreal zones across North America and Northern Eurasia. The first hypotheses explaining forest dieback were associated with industrial air pollution (acid rain). At the end of the century, new hypotheses emerged that supported critical climate-induced aridization to explain forest dieback. Many studies were based on the SPEI (Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index) drought index. Our goals were to investigate if the SPEI drought index was a suitable metric to reflect drought conditions in wet and moist dark-needled forests in the South Siberian Mountains (Mts) and if droughts trigger the dieback of those forests. Methods. We calculated the SPEI drought index, the annual moisture index AMI, potential evapotranspiration PET, and water balance dynamics for the period 1961–2019 for four transects in the South Siberian Mts. where decline/dieback of dark-needled Siberian pine and fir forests were identified in situ. Climate data from nine weather stations located at lower and upper elevations of each transect were used to calculate climatic index dynamics for the 1961–2019 period to identify dry and wet phases of the period. Results. Our findings showed that climatic moisture/dryness indices have rarely gone down to high risk levels during the last 60 years (1961–2019). AMI did not reach the critical limit, 2.25, characteristic of the lower border for the dark-needled taiga. SPEI values < −1.5 represent drought stress conditions for dark-needled conifers at the lower border, and these conditions occurred 3–4 times during the 60-year period. However, the annual water balance stayed positive in those years in wet and moist forests at mid-to-high elevations. Trees are known to survive occasional (1–2) dry years. We found that dark-needled conifer dieback often occurs in wet years with plentiful rain rather than in drought years. We found forest dieback was associated with the westerlies ...