Abstract
Climate change may lead to alterations in tree growth and carbon cycling. Interpreting the response of forest growth to climate change requires an understanding of the temporal and spatial patterns of seasonal climatic influences on the growth of tree species. However, the effects of climate change on pine forest dynamics in tropical region of Thailand remain poorly understood. This study develops three new tree ring-width chronologies of Pinus latteri (Tenasserim pine) in northern and northeastern Thailand and analyzes their climate-growth relationships and temporal stability. Ring-width chronologies of P. latteri at three sites showed significantly positive correlations with precipitation, relative humidity and self-calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI) during the dry season (previous November to current April) and early rainy season (May–June). Conversely, significantly negative correlations were found between ring-width site chronologies and air temperatures (mean, maximum and minimum) from April to August. Therefore, our results revealed that radial growth of Tenasserim pines from northern and northeastern Thailand was mainly limited by moisture availability during the dry-to-wet transition season from April to June. Moving correlations revealed that Tenasserim pines in the lowland area of northeastern Thailand became more sensitive to moisture availability in recent 30 years (1985–2017) as compared with early period (1951–1984). Accompanying the shifted growth sensitivity to climate change, growth synchrony among trees was increasing and tree growth rates of Tenasserim pines have been declining during recent decades at two more moisture-limited sites in northeastern Thailand. Recent rapid warming and increasing drought during the transition season (April–June) together intensify climatic constrains on tree growth of Tenasserim pines in the lowland area of northeastern Thailand. Considering continued regional climate change, pine forests in tropical lowland areas may encounter intensified drought stresses, and thus, become more vulnerable to future climate change. Our results serve as an early indicator of potential effects of climate change on tropical pine species and raise concerns about sustainable managements of pine forests under a changing climate.
Highlights
Tropical forests play an important role in global carbon cycle [1]; understanding the dynamics of tropical forests under a changing climate is of importance [2,3]
The mean sensitivity (MS) values are relatively high compared with other coniferous species in cold and humid regions
We developed three new chronologies of Pinus latteri (Tenasserim pine) from northwestern and northeastern regions in Thailand and analyzed their temporal stability of climate-growth relationships
Summary
Tropical forests play an important role in global carbon cycle [1]; understanding the dynamics of tropical forests under a changing climate is of importance [2,3]. Sensitivity analyses of climate-growth responses and their temporal stationarity provide an important insight for evaluating the impacts of climate change on tree growth [9]. In tropical Southeast Asia, many tree species have been identified with high dendrochronological potential [10]. In lowland tropical forests in Southeast Asia, analyses of tree growth variability and climate responses has mainly focused on Teak (Tectona grandis) [11,12,13], pine species (Pinus latteri and Pinus kesiya) [14,15,16], Toona ciliata [17] and Chukrasia tabularis [7,18]. Previous studies revealed that moisture availability during pre-monsoon season is the predominant climatic factor that controlling radial growth of tree species in tropical Southeast Asia [10,14,18]. Teak growing in Thailand [19]
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