Prolonged limitation of tree growth due to warmer spring in semi-arid mountain forests of Tianshan, northwest China

Based on radial tree growth measurements in nine plots of area 625 m(2) (369 trees in total) and climate data, we explored the possibly changing effects of climate on regional tree growth in the temperate continental semi-arid mountain forests in the Tianshan Mountains in northwest China during 1933...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental Research Letters
Main Authors: Wu, Xiuchen, Liu, Hongyan, Wang, Yufu, Deng, Minghua
Other Authors: Wu, XC (reprint author), Peking Univ, Coll Urban & Environm Sci, Dept Ecol, Beijing 100871, Peoples R China., Peking Univ, Coll Urban & Environm Sci, Dept Ecol, Beijing 100871, Peoples R China., Peking Univ, MOE Lab Earth Surface Proc, Beijing 100871, Peoples R China., Peking Univ, Sch Math Sci, Dept Probabil & Stat, Beijing 100871, Peoples R China.
Format: Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: environmental research letters 2013
Subjects:
spring warming
soil water limitation
tree growth
basal area increment (BAI)
soil water content
larch forest
DROUGHT SEVERITY INDEX
UNITED-STATES
CLIMATE-CHANGE
SOIL-MOISTURE
CENTRAL-ASIA
TEMPERATE VEGETATION
RING CHRONOLOGIES
NORTHERN MONGOLIA
LARIX-SIBIRICA
PERMAFROST
permafrost
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11897/322248
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024016
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Summary:Based on radial tree growth measurements in nine plots of area 625 m(2) (369 trees in total) and climate data, we explored the possibly changing effects of climate on regional tree growth in the temperate continental semi-arid mountain forests in the Tianshan Mountains in northwest China during 1933-2005. Tree growth in our study region is generally limited by the soil water content of pre-and early growing season (February-July). Remarkably, moving correlation functions identified a clear temporal change in the relationship between tree growth and mean April temperature. Tree growth showed a significant (p < 0 : 05) and negative relationship to mean April temperature since approximately the beginning of the 1970s, which indicated that the semi-arid mountain forests are suffering a prolonged growth limitation in recent years accompanying spring warming. This prolonged limitation of tree growth was attributed to the effects of soil water limitation in early spring (March-April) caused by the rapid spring warming. Warming-induced prolonged drought stress contributes, to a large part, to the marked reduction of regional basal area increment (BAI) in recent years and a much slower growth rate in young trees. Our results highlight that the increasing water limitation induced by spring warming on tree growth most likely aggravated the marked reduction in tree growth. This work provides a better understanding of the effects of spring warming on tree growth in temperate continental semi-arid forests. http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000321425100020&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=8e1609b174ce4e31116a60747a720701 Environmental Sciences Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences SCI(E) EI 7 ARTICLE 2 null 8

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