Abstract
Climatically controlled allocation to reproduction is a key mechanism by which climate influences tree growth and may explain lagged correlations between climate and growth. We used continent‐wide datasets of tree‐ring chronologies and annual reproductive effort in Fagus sylvatica from 1901 to 2015 to characterise relationships between climate, reproduction and growth. Results highlight that variable allocation to reproduction is a key factor for growth in this species, and that high reproductive effort (‘mast years’) is associated with stem growth reduction. Additionally, high reproductive effort is associated with previous summer temperature, creating lagged climate effects on growth. Consequently, understanding growth variability in forest ecosystems requires the incorporation of reproduction, which can be highly variable. Our results suggest that future response of growth dynamics to climate change in this species will be strongly influenced by the response of reproduction.
Highlights
Tree growth and reproduction are key controls on the dynamics of forest ecosystems at a range of timescales, including their response to ongoing climate change
Tree growth was significantly correlated with climate and reproductive effort in the five regions used for model development and fitting (Fig. 3 and Appendix S6)
Not all the linkages in the original models were significant, and comparison of alternative models demonstrated that the effects of MAXJJ-1 and MAXJJ-2 on ring-width indices (RWI) could be adequately explained by indirect pathways involving Reproductive effort (RE) (Appendices S9 and S10)
Summary
Tree growth and reproduction are key controls on the dynamics of forest ecosystems at a range of timescales, including their response to ongoing climate change. Both growth and reproduction are influenced by climate and resource availability. This makes them related, inducing growth-reproduction trade-offs in many species (Thomas 2011). Growing-season climate influences growth via physiological processes including leaf phenology, photosynthesis and xylogenesis A major source of such uncertainty are the processes that cause lagged effects of climate on growth
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