Reconstructing groundwater and lake level histories in Northern Wisconsin: isolation of groundwater’s influence on tree rings from climatic and environmental drivers

Abstract

Tree rings can reveal long-term environmental dynamics and drivers of tree growth. However, individual ecological drivers of tree growth need to be disentangled from the effects of other co-occurring environmental and climatic conditions in tree rings to examine the histories of stand- to landscape-level ecological processes. Here, we integrate ecohydrological theory of groundwater–tree interactions with dendrochronological approaches and develop a new framework to isolate water-level effects on tree rings from climate induced variability in tree ring growth. Our results indicate that changing depth to groundwater within 1–2.3 m of the land surface exerts a substantial influence on red pine growth and this influence can be quantified and used to reconstruct long-term groundwater and lake level histories from tree ring patterns in Northern Wisconsin. This research suggests a substantial influence of groundwater on tree growth with implications for improving the mechanistic understanding of climate-induced tree mortality and reduce uncertainty in forest productivity models. Further, this is a transferable approach to isolate and reconstruct strong environmental drivers of tree growth that co-occur with other environmental signals.