First Dendroclimatological Insight into Austrian Pine (Pinus nigra Arnold) Climate-Growth Relationship in Belgrade Area, Serbia

Branko Stajić,Nenad Radaković,Marko Kazimirović,Vojislav Dukić

doi:10.15177/seefor.20-12

Branko Stajić, Nenad Radaković + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.15177/seefor.20-12

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Abstract

In order to assess the impact of climate variations on Austrian pine forest in the Belgrade area, the radial growth of artificially-established Austrian pine trees and its dependence on temperature and precipitation was studied using dendroclimatological methods. The site is classified as Quercetum-frainetto cerris Rudski. Standard and residual chronologies were established and several common statistics were calculated. A dendroclimatic study was carried out using the correlation and response function analysis. The Pearson correlation coefficients between the chronology indices and 13 seasonal (3-month period) precipitation and temperature data were calculated for the period from 1959 to 2014. The applied response function analysis included 24 precipitation and temperature variables from October of the prior year to September of the current year. The results of the correlation analysis pointed out that there was a strong tendency towards a positive response to the summer and late summer/early autumn precipitation and a weak significant negative response to the spring and summer temperatures. Climate-growth relationships were further first studied using the response functions for the significant seasons that were detected from the correlation analysis and then for individual months from previous October to current September. These results also highlighted the findings that higher precipitation in the current summer months has a beneficial effect on the tree-ring width. The conducted correlation between the residual chronology and the Standardised Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index indicated that a high summer value of this drought index had a positive impact on the pine growth and reinforced the previously detected relevance of September as an important month for the Austrian pine growth. These preliminary results point out that some additional climate-Austrian pine growth studies (application of various tree-ring features, growth data with a much longer time span, more sites/stands, etc.) should be performed to obtain new and valuable knowledge important for the sustainable management of Austrian pine forests.

Highlights

Climate change in Central Europe is forcing forestry in Central Europe to make forests resilient to future climate conditions (Walentowski et al 2017)
The results showed that Austrian pine in the area of Rudnik Mountain was very sensitive to precipitation in summer months in the given conditions, in the way that higher amounts of summer precipitation resulted in significantly higher radial increment values
In order to quantify the common and different features of both chronology versions in the representation of the climatic potential of growth data, statistical characteristics of STD and residual site chronology (RES) master chronologies were calculated for the common period of all series, from 1959 to 2014 (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Climate change in Central Europe (temperature rise and, above all, the increasing drought risk) is forcing forestry in Central Europe to make forests resilient to future climate conditions (Walentowski et al 2017). Similar future climate projection could be noted for the South-Eastern Europe region (Angelini et al 2012), causing climate variations which could generally affect many aspects of forest ecosystems, including tree growth and dieback, insect outbreaks, species distributions, and the seasonality of ecosystem processes (Seppälä et al 2009) For this reason, the growth of trees as the main component of forest ecosystems could be one of the most useful (bio)indicators, reflecting the general health and sustainability of forests and providing comprehensive knowledge of long tree and forest history needed for the understanding of forest dynamics and past environmental changes (Fritts 1976, Richter et al 1991, Spiecker 2002, Juknys et al 2002, Leal et al 2008, Stajić et al 2015). In their annual rings, trees preserve an archive of past growing conditions reflecting competition, disturbance, soil characteristics or species-specific growth patterns, as well as human-induced disturbances (Ostrogović Sever et al 2017)

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