Radial Growth Response of Siberian Pines to Climate Warming in the Sayan Mountains, Southern Siberia, Russian Federation

Abstract

Climate warming and subsequent drought are predicted to alter local forest production and carbon budgets, the sensitivity of which may be site- and species-specific. Although a warmer and drier climate often constrains tree growth, whether trees grown in cool, wet regions across the Siberian forest can in turn be promoted remains unknown. Here, we aimed to investigate the historical growth tendency of Siberian forests in the Sayan Mountain areas and to explore how climate interacts to regulate their growth. We used ring-width data from Siberian pine (Pinus sibirica Du Tour) sampled from three sites in this area to establish a regional chronology and calculate percentage growth change (%GC) over the past 250 years. Bootstrapped correlation analysis between the regional ring-width chronology and climatic factors indicates the mean air temperature, though not precipitation, is more often positively linked to the radial growth of Siberian pines. The %GC series shows that, from 1966 to 2006, the rising temperatures in May resulted in a significant increase in the radial-growth rate of Siberian pines (r = 0.47, p < 0.05). Our study suggests that the positive growth rate anomaly is more likely to occur as temperatures rise in Southern Siberia.