A Tree-Ring-Based Assessment of Pinus armandii Adaptability to Climate Using Two Statistical Methods in Mt. Yao, Central China during 1961–2016

Jianfeng Peng,Jiaxin Huo,Liu Yang,Xuan Li,Meng Peng,Jingru Li,Jiayue Cui,Jinbao Li

doi:10.3390/f12060780

Jianfeng Peng, Jiaxin Huo + Show 6 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/f12060780

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Journal: Forests	Publication Date: Jun 13, 2021
Citations: 2	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Henan University, University of Hong Kong

Abstract

Assessing the characteristics and limiting factors of tree growth is of practical significance for environmental studies and climatic reconstruction, especially in climate transition zones. In this study, four sites of Pinus armandii Franeh are investigated to understand regional climate-tree growth response in Mt. Yao, central China. Based on the high similarity of four residual chronologies and high correlations between chronologies and climatic factors, we analyzed the correlations of regional residual chronology with monthly climatic factors and the self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI) from 1961–2016. The results indicate that the hydrothermal combination of prior August and current May and the scPDSI in May are main limiting factors of regional tree growth in Mt. Yao. The results of stepwise regression models also show that temperature and scPDSI in May are the main limiting factors of tree growth, but the limiting effect of scPDSI is more than temperature in this month. Through the analysis of the number of tree growth years corresponding to high temperature and high scPDSI, it was further confirmed that scPDSI in May is the main limiting factor on the growth of P. armandii in Mt. Yao. However, the influence of scPDSI in May has weakened, while temperature in May has increasingly significant influence on tree growth. The above findings will help improve our understanding of forest dynamics in central China under global climate change.

Highlights

Mean sensitivities (M.S.) of all residual chronologies are over 0.2 and standard deviations (S.D.) of all chronologies are lower than 0.25. These indicated that tree growth is in good consistency among the four sampling sites of different environments in this study area
High correlations for all-cores, within-tree and between-trees (r1, r2 and r3) of all chronologies showed that all trees had good growth consistency
The above results prove that temperature is the main limiting factor on tree growth in this area, while there are different results in various environmental sampling points

Summary

Introduction

Tree-rings have become one of the most important means for studying global climate change, with their precise dating, high (annual or season) resolution, extensive spatial availability, and high sensitivity to hydroclimate at many locations [1,2]. A reliable climate reconstruction based on tree-rings should be built on a clear understanding of tree growth under different environmental conditions, and can only be achieved by incorporating the samples with coherent growth patterns. Tree-ring studies in China have witnessed a rapid development in recent decades, but mostly concentrate in arid and semi-arid regions [8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15] and on the Tibetan Plateau [16,17,18,19,20,21,22]

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