Abstract
Wild populations of Malus sieversii [Ldb.] M. Roem are valued genetic and watershed resources in Inner Eurasia. These populations are located in a region that has experienced rapid and on-going climatic change over the past several decades. We assess relationships between climate variables and wild apple radial growth with dendroclimatological techniques to understand the potential of a changing climate to influence apple radial growth. Ring-width chronologies spanning 48 to 129 years were developed from 12 plots in the Trans-Ili Alatau and Jungar Alatau ranges of Tian Shan Mountains, southeastern Kazakhstan. Cluster analysis of the plot-level chronologies suggests different temporal patterns of growth variability over the last century in the two mountain ranges studied. Changes in the periodicity of annual ring-width variability occurred ca. 1970 at both mountain ranges, with decadal-scale variability supplanted by quasi-biennial variation. Seascorr correlation analysis of primary and secondary weather variables identified negative growth associations with spring precipitation and positive associations with cooler fall-winter temperatures, but the relative importance of these relationships varied spatially and temporally, with a shift in the relative importance of spring precipitation ca. 1970 at Trans-Ili Alatau. Altered apple tree radial growth patterns correspond to altered climatology in the Lake Balkhash Basin driven by unprecedented intensified Arctic Oscillations after the late 1970s.
Highlights
The relict fruit wood forests of Inner Eurasia are highly treasured as genetic reserves for cultivated fruit species, especially apple (Malus spp.), and for the ecosystem services that they provide [1,2,3]
Large contiguous wild apple forests survive in a few locations of Eurasia, including the foothills of the Tian Shan Mountains in southeast Kazakhstan
The landscape closely conforms to the Tian Shan mountainous ranges of Kyrgyzstan and the Chinese province of Xinjiang where wild apple growth occur as well
Summary
The relict fruit wood forests of Inner Eurasia are highly treasured as genetic reserves for cultivated fruit species, especially apple (Malus spp.), and for the ecosystem services that they provide [1,2,3]. The natural range of relict fruit wood forests spreads across many mountain ranges of the Tian Shan and Pamyr Mountains through the neighboring countries: Kyrgyzstan and China, as well as Russian Siberia It is believed that mesophyllic flora of the wild fruitwood forests region). It isinbelieved that mesophyllic of the wild fruitwood forests originated in the the Tertiary originated the Tertiary period andflora survived extinction in isolated refugia during last period and survived extinction in isolated refugia during the last
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