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Forests
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Applications of Dendrochronology in Forest Climatology
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Applications of Dendrochronology in Forest Climatology

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Meteorology and Climate Change".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 December 2022) | Viewed by 39970

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Jesper A. Björklund

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Swiss Federal Institute of Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, 8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland
Interests: tree-ring densitometry; climate reconstruction; blue intensity; wood anatomy; standardization

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Forests are greatly influenced by climate and weather, storing an invaluable archive of information in the annual rings of trees. Dendrochronology has the capacity to provide unique insights into natural vegetation dynamics and climatological reconstructions. A plethora of disciplines utilizes this phenomenon to conduct important research on hot topics such as historical climate change, forest ecology and dating historical artefacts. The applications of dendrochronology are continuously expanding, and this Special Issue aims at providing selected contributions of new and established methods for extracting information from tree rings and their relationship with climate. We are particularly interested in tree-ring proxy development, statistical method developments/reviews, tree-ring image analysis hardware/software and more. Increased quality and scope in data harvesting from tree rings have the potential for answering a variety of climatological, ecological and methodological questions.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Climate reconstructions;
  • Dendrochronological methods development;
  • Dendroecological investigations;
  • Extreme events;
  • Carbon sequestration.

We invite colleagues to contribute their research on the applications of dendrochronology, and we encourage serious discussions on both strengths and weaknesses of the method in order to constructively move our field forward.

Dr. Jesper A. Björklund
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • dendroclimatology
  • tree-ring image analysis
  • dendrochronological software development
  • dendroecology
  • woody biomass
  • detrending
  • dendrostatistics

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 5719 KiB  
Article
Dendroclimatic Reconstruction of Mean Annual Temperatures over Treeline Regions of Northern Bhutan Himalayas
by Yeshey Khandu, Anan Polthanee and Supat Isarangkool Na Ayutthaya
Forests 2022, 13(11), 1794; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f13111794 - 28 Oct 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1966
Abstract
The Himalayan region is likely particularly exposed to climate change indicated by the high regional rate of change. The number of high-resolution, well-calibrated, and long-term paleoclimate reconstructions are however regrettably few, to set this change in a longer-term context. The dendroclimatic reconstructions over [...] Read more.
The Himalayan region is likely particularly exposed to climate change indicated by the high regional rate of change. The number of high-resolution, well-calibrated, and long-term paleoclimate reconstructions are however regrettably few, to set this change in a longer-term context. The dendroclimatic reconstructions over Himalaya that do exist have only reconstructed summer season temperatures, and rarely or never attempted to reconstruct mean annual temperatures. The paucity of long meteorological records is a matter of concern when developing chronologies of climate sensitive tree-ring data in Bhutan, but the chronologies would theoretically be of high potential for extending short meteorological records back in time using trees in high-elevation ecotones. The objectives of this study were to explore dendroclimatic signals in tree-ring width chronologies of Abies densa growing in these extreme ecotones and to reconstruct, if possible, annual temperatures over Northern Bhutan. A point-by-point regression analysis revealed that the regional composite chronology was significantly and positively correlated with temperatures of all months of the current year, i.e., January to December. The chronology was highly correlated with annual temperatures (calibration period R = 0.67 and validation period R = 0.50; p < 0.001) allowing a reconstruction of temperature over Northern Bhutan (NB-TEMR). The NB-TEMR reveals some common variations with summer temperature reconstructions of the Northern Hemisphere as well as the Himalayan region, particularly w.r.t to the recent warming trend. The reconstruction covers the period of 1765 to 2017. This reconstruction reveals a warming trend since 1850 with higher rates of warming 1935 to 2017, but with a pause around 1940–1970. The warming is consistent with reduced volcanic activity and increase of greenhouse gases. We anticipate that our new reconstruction of annual mean temperature could be an important contribution for future climate change studies and assessments of climate models. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Dendrochronology in Forest Climatology)
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17 pages, 5207 KiB  
Article
Is the Pinus massoniana Lamb. Tree-Ring Latewood Formation Influenced by the Diurnal Temperature Range in Humid Subtropical China?
by Zhuangpeng Zheng, Keyan Fang, Yao Chen, Zhipeng Dong, Feifei Zhou and Yingjun Li
Forests 2022, 13(9), 1439; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f13091439 - 08 Sep 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1217
Abstract
Tree-ring latewood is a key proxy for the reconstruction of climate, especially for temperature. The mechanisms of latewood formation and its responses to climates remain uncertain. Given that the tree-ring latewood of the taproot is absent belowground under conditions of low temperature gradients, [...] Read more.
Tree-ring latewood is a key proxy for the reconstruction of climate, especially for temperature. The mechanisms of latewood formation and its responses to climates remain uncertain. Given that the tree-ring latewood of the taproot is absent belowground under conditions of low temperature gradients, we thus hypothesize that low diurnal temperature ranges (DTRs) may be one determining factor for latewood production. To evaluate this hypothesis, we designed experimental investigations by adding heat-protecting layers to the trunks of Pinus massoniana Lamb. to lower DTRs and simulate the environmental conditions underground in the Fuzhou area of humid subtropical China (HSC). We found that a decreased DTR induces a significant decline in latewood cell thickness and a slight reduction in latewood cell number and latewood density. DTRs played an important role in the formation of tree-ring width (TRW) and latewood width (LWW) rather than precipitation. Our study highlighted the effects of DTRs on tree growth and wood anatomical changes and provided a possible explanation for the “divergence problem” in dendroclimatology. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Dendrochronology in Forest Climatology)
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17 pages, 4993 KiB  
Article
Reconstruction of the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index for the Western Region of Durango State, Mexico
by Citlalli Cabral-Alemán, José Villanueva-Díaz, Gerónimo Quiñonez-Barraza, Armando Gómez-Guerrero and Jesús Guadalupe Arreola-Ávila
Forests 2022, 13(8), 1233; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f13081233 - 03 Aug 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 33599
Abstract
In recent decades, droughts associated with climate change have increased in frequency and intensity. Given this trend, the understanding of climate variability over time has raised great interest. The main objective of this study was to reconstruct the standardized precipitation-evapotranspiration index (SPEI) from [...] Read more.
In recent decades, droughts associated with climate change have increased in frequency and intensity. Given this trend, the understanding of climate variability over time has raised great interest. The main objective of this study was to reconstruct the standardized precipitation-evapotranspiration index (SPEI) from tree rings of Pinus durangensis Martinez at a representative site in the western region of the Durango State, Mexico. To this end, we used radii of 286 cross-sections, which were processed through conventional dendrochronological techniques. In addition, chronologies of total ring and early and latewood were generated, covering 296 years. In parallel, we analyzed the association between the chronologies obtained and the cumulative SPEI for 3, 6, 9, and 12 months. The earlywood residual chronology (EWres) showed the closest association with the six-month cumulative SPEI for February–May (SPEI6FM). Thus, the SPEI6FM for the past 296 years was reconstructed through a simple linear regression model. In this reconstruction, 18% of the years were wet, 16% dry, and 66% average. In addition, an increase in the frequency of droughts was observed from 1880 onwards, which might have been related to the rise in temperature due to climate warming. Therefore, the annual rings of P. durangensis are suitable for use as a proxy for the reconstruction of historical climatic events in this region of northern Mexico. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Dendrochronology in Forest Climatology)
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22 pages, 10386 KiB  
Article
Ecological Dynamics and Regeneration Expansion of Treeline Ecotones in Response to Climate Change in Northern Bhutan Himalayas
by Yeshey Khandu, Anan Polthanee and Supat Isarangkool Na Ayutthaya
Forests 2022, 13(7), 1062; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f13071062 - 06 Jul 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2278
Abstract
The alpine treeline ecotones are an early indicator of vegetation’s response to changes in climate, and the advancement of diffuse treeline ecotones has been associated with mean annual warming temperatures. However, the knowledge of how tree demographic size, age and population distribution, and [...] Read more.
The alpine treeline ecotones are an early indicator of vegetation’s response to changes in climate, and the advancement of diffuse treeline ecotones has been associated with mean annual warming temperatures. However, the knowledge of how tree demographic size, age and population distribution, and regeneration decrease with increasing elevation and mean annual temperature remain fragmentary in Bhutan. There was no explanation of how treelines migrate in response to the climate. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to investigate tree demographic size and age and population distribution, as well as the regeneration expansion of treeline ecotones of Abies densa trees in response to climate change. Demographic data from thirty transect bands from treeline ecotones and reconstructed mean annual temperatures from tree-rings were used. Regression analysis was used to establish a relationship between elevation/temperature and demographic tree size and age, as well as to determine recruitment frequency distributions and whether these could be driven by climate change. The tree demography indicated that the treeline ecotone in our sampling site is temperature limited. Hence, cooler temperatures at higher elevations should drive decreases in basal diameter, age and recruitment frequencies. From the dendroecological analysis, the diffuse treeline ecotones appear to be climbing on average 1.00 m per year in Northern Bhutan. We also found that the recruitment frequency has increased over recent years (1850–2017), as temperatures continue to rise. The thermal treeline ecotones will be likely to serve as a line of bioclimatic reference against which other zones of bioclimate can be defined. With documented responses of treeline ecotones toward mean annual temperatures, the expectation is that additional warming will continue to influence regeneration expansion in the future. This dynamic response of treeline ecotones towards the climate acts as an indicator of climate change. Information about climbing treelines and altered ecotones should be a vital part of the material for decision makers to consider, to assess impacts and threats to Himalayan alpine biota. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Dendrochronology in Forest Climatology)
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