Geographical adaptation prevails over species-specific determinism in trees' vulnerability to climate change at Mediterranean rear-edge forests

• Published in: Global Change Biology
• Main Authors: Dorado-Liñán, Isabel, Piovesan, Gianluca, Martínez-Sancho, Elisabet, Gea-Izquierdo, Guillermo, Zang, Christian, Cañellas, Isabel, Castagneri, Daniele, Di Filippo, Alfredo, Gutiérrez, Emilia, Ewald, Joerg, Fernandez de Una, Laura, Hornstein, Daniel, Jantsch, Matthias C, Levanič, Tom, Mellert, Karl H, Vacchiano, Giorgio, Zlatanov, Tzvetan, Menzel, Annette
• Other Authors: INIA-CIFOR, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Università degli studi della Tuscia Viterbo, University of Barcelona, Technische Universität Munchen - Technical University Munich - Université Technique de Munich (TUM), Università degli Studi di Padova = University of Padua (Unipd), University of Applied Sciences of Weihenstephan, SILVA (SILVA), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-AgroParisTech-Université de Lorraine (UL), Bavarian State Institute of Forestry, Slovenian Forestry Institute, Università degli Studi di Milano = University of Milan (UNIMI), Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS), Bavarian State Forest Authority (Project MARGINS), IGSSE_TUM (Water03-IDDEC), Comunidad de Madrid (Project BOSSANOVA) S2013/MAE-2760 Postdoctoral Junior Leader Fellowship Programme from "la Caixa" Banking Foundation Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness AGL 2014-61175-JIN RyC-2014-15864 European Research Council 282250
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2019
• Subjects: Mediterranean Basin; climate change; drought; rear-edge forests; tolerance indices; tree growth; FAGUS-SYLVATICA L; NORTH-ATLANTIC OSCILLATION; SCALE ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION; WATER-USE EFFICIENCY; SCOTS PINE; NORWAY SPRUCE; SESSILE OAK; SPATIAL-PATTERNS; SILVER FIR; GROWTH RESILIENCE; global change; atmospheric circulation; vulnerability; coniferous tree; forêt méditerranéenne; changement climatique; bassin méditerranéen; circulation atmosphérique; vulnérabilité; conifère; épinette; pin sylvestre; abies alba; [SDV]Life Sciences [q-bio]; Norway; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-02184243; https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14544

Climate change may reduce forest growth and increase forest mortality, which is connected to high carbon costs through reductions in gross primary production and net ecosystem exchange.Yet, the spatiotemporal patterns of vulnerability to both short-term extreme events and gradual environmental changes are quite uncertain across the species' limits of tolerance to dryness. Such information is fundamental for defining ecologically relevant upper limits of species tolerance to drought and, hence, to predict the risk of increased forest mortality and shifts in species composition.We investigate here to what extent the impact of short- and long-term environmental changes determines vulnerability to climate change of three evergreen conifers (Scots pine, silver fir, Norway spruce) and two deciduous hardwoods (European beech, sessile oak) tree species at their southernmost limits of distribution in the Mediterranean Basin. Finally, we simulated future forest growth under RCP 2.6 and 8.5 emission scenarios using a multispecies generalized linear mixed model. Our analysis provides four key insights into the patterns of species' vulnerability to climate change.First, site climatic marginality was significantly linked to the growth trends: increasing growth was related to less climatically limited sites.Second, estimated species-specific vulnerability did not match their a priori rank in drought tolerance: Scots pine and beech seem to be the most vulnerable species among those studied despite their contrasting physiologies.Third, adaptation to site conditions prevails over species-specific determinism in forest response to climate change. And fourth, regional differences in forests vulnerability to climate change across the Mediterranean Basin are linked to the influence of summer atmospheric circulation patterns, which are not correctly represented in global climate models.Thus, projections of forest performance should reconsider the traditional classification of tree species in functional types and critically evaluate ...