Forest Adaptation to Climate Change: From Individual Trees to Whole Stand

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Biometeorology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (24 December 2019) | Viewed by 12152

Special Issue Editors

Department of Mathematical Methods and Information Technology, Siberian Federal University, L. Prushinskoy St., 2, 660075 Krasnoyarsk, Russia
Interests: tree rings; process-based simulations; climate factors; dendrochronology; wood anatomy; cell structure
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Department of Ecology, University of Barcelona, 08007 Barcelona, Spain
Interests: tree adaptation; tree phenology; tree physiology; dendrochronology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Key Laboratory of Desert and Desertification, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 730000 Lanzhou, China
Interests: tree phenology; tree rings; dendrochronology; climate reconstructions; climate changes
Unit BioForA, UMR 0588 INRA Val de Loire / ONF, Avenue de la pomme de pin CS 40001 Ardon, 45075 Orléans Cedex 2, France
Interests: tree adaptation; tree rings; environmental changes; phenotypic plasticity; microdensity

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue addresses the fundamental problem of forest reaction forecast to climate change and increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the terrestrial ecosystems of the earth.

The problem of tree-ring response to possible climate change is one of the most urgent problems of modern forest ecology. Despite a large number of papers concerning tree-ring response to different environmental changes (temperature increase, drought, etc.), there is no reliable answer to how woody plants will respond to environmental changes in different forest stands and various physiographic zones.

Wood characteristics are important in determining the ability of a tree to face environmental cues, including climate change. Indeed, under normal climatic variability, wood anatomy, structure, and function usually fit the environmental conditions. However, under a rapidly changing climate, these characteristics need to be adjusted to fit the environmental conditions through phenotypic plasticity and/or evolutionary adaptation.

To promote a sound and future-oriented management of forest resources, it is fundamental that tree breeders and forest managers select and promote individuals, provenances, and species that best fit the future conditions. It is therefore important and urgent that plant scientists provide tools and knowledge helping to identify and select the most relevant adaptive traits.

With this Special Issue, we aim at gathering experts from different disciplines to present original results, review papers, and theoretical and practical approaches for a better understanding of plant/trees adaptation to climate, with special focus on: 1) Environmental control and/or genetic determinism of wood formation; 2) Methodological developments for the study of wood formation and tree adaptation to climate; 3) Ecophysiological approaches to wood functioning, and 5) Tree/Climate simulations and information systems.

Sincerely,

Prof. Vladimir V. Shishov
Prof. Emilia Gutiérrez Merino
Prof. Bao Yang
Dr. Philippe Rozenberg
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • tree growth
  • wood formation
  • wood functioning
  • climate
  • Tree adaptation
  • environmental control
  • genetic determinism
  • process-based simulations

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 2525 KiB  
Article
A 241-Year Cryptomeria fortune Tree-Ring Chronology in Humid Subtropical China and Its Linkages with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
by Zhipeng Dong, Dai Chen, Jianhua Du, Guang Yang, Maowei Bai, Feifei Zhou, Zhuangpeng Zheng, Chaoyue Ruan and Keyan Fang
Atmosphere 2020, 11(3), 247; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/atmos11030247 - 29 Feb 2020
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2907
Abstract
Humid subtropical China is an “oasis” relative to other dry subtropics of the world due to the prevailing of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM). Although many long climate sensitive tree-rings have been published to understand the historical climate change over various regions [...] Read more.
Humid subtropical China is an “oasis” relative to other dry subtropics of the world due to the prevailing of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM). Although many long climate sensitive tree-rings have been published to understand the historical climate change over various regions in China, long tree-ring chronologies in humid subtropical China are rare due to the difficulty to find old growth trees. This study established a tree-ring chronology spanning from 1776 to 2016 from Cryptomeria fortunei Hooibrenk ex Otto et Dietr in Liancheng area of humid subtropical China, which is also currently the longest chronology in Fujian province. Similar to the climate-growth relationships in neighboring regions, our tree-ring chronology is limited by cold temperature in winter and spring and drought in summer. In addition, a drought stress before the growing season also played a role in limiting the growth of our tree rings. Our climate sensitive tree rings showed different correlations with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) in different periods, possibly via modulation of the EASM. Full article
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12 pages, 5129 KiB  
Article
Environmental Drivers for Cambial Reactivation of Qilian Junipers (Juniperus przewalskii) in a Semi-Arid Region of Northwestern China
by Qiao Zeng, Sergio Rossi, Bao Yang, Chun Qin and Gang Li
Atmosphere 2020, 11(3), 232; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/atmos11030232 - 28 Feb 2020
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 2141
Abstract
Although cambial reactivation is considered to be strongly dependent on temperature, the importance of water availability at the onset of xylogenesis in semi-arid regions still lacks sufficient evidences. In order to explore how environmental factors influence the initiation of cambial activity and wood [...] Read more.
Although cambial reactivation is considered to be strongly dependent on temperature, the importance of water availability at the onset of xylogenesis in semi-arid regions still lacks sufficient evidences. In order to explore how environmental factors influence the initiation of cambial activity and wood formation, we monitored weekly cambial phenology in Qilian juniper (Juniperus przewalskii) from a semi-arid high-elevation region of northwestern China. We collected microcores from 12 trees at two elevations during the growing seasons in 2013 and 2014, testing the hypothesis that rainfall limits cambial reactivation in spring. Cambium was reactivated from late April to mid-May, and completed cell division from late July to early August, lasting 70–100 days. Both sites suffered from severe drought from January to April 2013, receiving < 1 mm of rain in April. In contrast, rainfall from January to April 2014 was 5–6 times higher than that in 2013. However, cambial reactivation in 2014 was delayed by 10 days. In spring, soil moisture gradually increased with warming temperatures, reaching 0.15 m3/m3 before the onset of xylogenesis, which may have ensured water availability for tree growth during the rainless period. We were unable to confirm the hypothesis that rainfall is a limiting factor of cambial reactivation. Our results highlight the importance of soil moisture in semi-arid regions, which better describe the environmental conditions that are favorable for cambial reactivation in water-limited ecosystems. Full article
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19 pages, 5710 KiB  
Article
Stable Isotopes Reveal Climate Signal Hidden in Tree Rings of Endemic Balkan Pines
by Tom Levanič, Jernej Jevšenak and Polona Hafner
Atmosphere 2020, 11(2), 135; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/atmos11020135 - 24 Jan 2020
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3085
Abstract
Studies report the good potential of Pinus heldreichii (PIHE) and Pinus peuce (PIPE) for developing long chronologies from living trees and warn that the climate signal is weak in tree-ring widths of PIHE, and particularly PIPE. The goals of the study were to [...] Read more.
Studies report the good potential of Pinus heldreichii (PIHE) and Pinus peuce (PIPE) for developing long chronologies from living trees and warn that the climate signal is weak in tree-ring widths of PIHE, and particularly PIPE. The goals of the study were to develop long chronologies, and to analyze the climate–growth relationship and potential for long climate reconstructions using tree-ring widths (TRW) and stable carbon isotopes ratios (δ13C) in tree rings at the northern edge of species distribution in the eastern part of Montenegro. The PIHE TRW chronology covers the period 1571–2013 (443 years) and the PIPE TRW chronology 1521–2013 (493 years). The temperature signal in PIHE TRW is weak and the precipitation signal is non-existent. PIPE has no climate signal in TRW. Both studied species have very similar δ13C chronologies, which allows us to merge isotope chronologies into a single composite δ13C Pinus chronology. The composite chronology has a strong signal related to average monthly temperature in June, July, and August and monthly values for cloudiness in July and August, with r > 0.6 and r < −0.6 for individual months, respectively. The climate signal was enhanced when June, July, and August values were merged into seasonal variables. The temporal stability of temperature, precipitation and cloudiness signals is consistent. The spatial extent of the δ13C chronology extends over a very large region, including all surrounding countries. Full article
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16 pages, 2449 KiB  
Article
On the ‘Divergence Problem’ in the Alatau Mountains, Central Asia: A Study of the Responses of Schrenk Spruce Tree-Ring Width to Climate under the Recent Warming and Wetting Trend
by Tongwen Zhang, Ruibo Zhang, Shengxia Jiang, Maisupova Bagila, Utebekova Ainur and Shulong Yu
Atmosphere 2019, 10(8), 473; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/atmos10080473 - 17 Aug 2019
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 3349
Abstract
The divergence problem, which manifests as an unstable response relationship between tree-ring growth and climatic factors under the background of global warming, poses a challenge to both the traditional theory of dendroclimatology and the reliability of climatic reconstructions based on tree-ring data. Although [...] Read more.
The divergence problem, which manifests as an unstable response relationship between tree-ring growth and climatic factors under the background of global warming, poses a challenge to both the traditional theory of dendroclimatology and the reliability of climatic reconstructions based on tree-ring data. Although Schrenk spruce, as the dominant tree species in the Tianshan Mountains, is frequently applied in the dendrochronological studies, the understanding of the divergence problem of this tree species is still limited. This study conducted correlation analysis between climatic factors and tree-ring width chronologies from 51 living and healthy specimens of Schrenk spruce at sites of high and low elevation in the Alatau Mountains to determine the stability of the response. The results revealed that the tree-ring width of the spruce specimens was correlated positively with precipitation and correlated negatively with temperature. Although the variations of the two tree-ring chronologies were similar, the radial growth of the spruce at the low elevation was found more sensitive to climatic factors. Furthermore, the sensitivity of tree growth to climate demonstrated an obvious increase after an abrupt change of climate under the background of the recent warming and wetting trend. Increased drought stress, calculated based on climatic data, was regarded as the main reason for this phenomenon. The results supply the gap of the stability of climatic response of tree growth in Central Asia to some extent. Full article
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