Sensitivity of sub-annual grey pine (Pinus sabiniana) stem growth to water supply and demand in central California

Abstract

Pinus sabiniana (grey pine) is a common associate of Quercus douglasii (blue oak) in the iconic, ecologically-rich, and economically-relevant Mediterranean woodland savannah of California, USA. While there are dozens of Q. douglasii sites in the International Tree-Ring Data Bank, P. sabiniana was conspicuously absent, and little is known about its growth patterns or water relations. Here, we introduce a new tree-ring chronology of P. sabiniana collected in central California and assess climatic drivers of annual and sub-annual growth. Specifically, we examine earlywood, latewood, and total annual ring widths and analyse their relationships with variables related to water supply (precipitation, soil moisture) and water demand (air temperature, potential evaporation rate). Annual and earlywood widths had nearly identical responses to climate, likely because annual widths mostly consisted of earlywood (mean: 88 %). In both cases, growth was strongly and positively associated with water supply and negatively associated with water demand. Soil moisture was, by far, the strongest and most temporally-consistent correlate of P. sabiniana growth: correlations between soil moisture and annual growth were >0.8 for five contiguous 3-month seasons. Other variables were significant, in part, because of their influence on soil moisture. The association between latewood growth and climate was qualitatively similar but weaker and, with the exception of soil moisture, more seasonally localised (precipitation was relevant in winter and early spring and water demand variables were relevant in summer, somewhat later in the season than for total ring width and earlywood). Further, P. sabiniana growth was nearly always more sensitive to soil moisture than growth of either co-located Q. douglasii or P. ponderosa (ponderosa pine) at a neighbouring site, suggesting that it may act as a particularly sensitive harbinger of drought stress in this ecosystem.