Abstract
Extreme climate events such as heat waves, drought, and heavy rainfall are occurring more frequently and are more intense due to ongoing climate change. This study evaluated the early growth performance of one-year-old Larix kaempferi (Lamb.) Carr. seedlings under open-field extreme climate conditions including experimental warming and different precipitation regimes. We recorded the survival rate, root collar diameter, height, biomass, shoot-to-root ratio, and seedling quality index using nine treatments (three temperature levels, i.e., control, warming by 3 °C and by 6 °C, × three precipitation levels, i.e., control, drought, and heavy rainfall) in July and August 2020. The survival rate of seedlings did not differ between treatments, showing high values exceeding 94% across treatments. The measured shoot height was largest under warming by 3 °C and high rainfall, indicating that moderate warming increased seedling height growth in a moist environment. Heavy rainfall decreased stem volume by 21% and 25% under control and warming by 6 °C treatments, respectively. However, drought manipulation using rain-out shelters did not decrease the growth performance. Overall, extreme climate events did not affect the survival rate, biomass, shoot-to-root ratio, and seedling quality index of L. kaempferi. We thus conclude that, regarding growth responses, L. kaempferi seedlings may be resistant to short-term extreme warming and drought events during summer.
Highlights
Climate change results in an increased frequency and higher intensity of extreme weather events such as heat waves, drought, and heavy rainfall [1,2,3]
In our open-field experiment, we used one-year-old container tainer seedlings, which can be advantageous for drought avoidance potential, resulting in seedlings, which can be advantageous for drought avoidance potential, resulting in higher higher levels of field survival when compared to bare-root seedlings in terms of planting levels of field survival when compared to bare-root seedlings in terms of planting stress stress and early field performance [51,52]
Precipitation manipulation did not affect the root collar diameter (RCD) of the seedlings; we found a significant precipitation effect on seedling height and a significant interaction effect of precipitation and temperature on seedling height and stem volume, which is a function of both shoot height and RCD
Summary
Climate change results in an increased frequency and higher intensity of extreme weather events such as heat waves, drought, and heavy rainfall [1,2,3]. Panel on Climate Change defined an extreme climatic event as an event being rarer than the 10th or 90th percentile of climate events within its statistical frequency distribution at a particular place over a certain period of time [1,7]. Such unprecedented climate events and uncertain future climate projections may affect tree growth, mortality, and forest structure and functioning [6,7,8,9,10]. Given the effects of extreme climate events on plants, these processes may reduce forest productivity, so it is crucial to predict the responses of plants to extreme climate events
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