Climate change and tree growth in the Khakass-Minusinsk Depression (South Siberia) impacted by large water reservoirs

Abstract

Regional and local climate change depends on continentality, orography, and human activities. In particular, local climate modification by water reservoirs can reach far from shore and downstream. Among the possible ecological consequences are shifts in plant performance. Tree-ring width of affected trees can potentially be used as proxies for reservoir impact. Correlation analysis and t-tests were applied to climatic data and tree-ring chronologies of Pinus sylvestris L. and Larix sibirica Ledeb. from moisture-deficit habitats in the intermontane Khakass-Minusinsk Depression, to assess modification of climate and tree growth by the Krasnoyarsk and Sayano-Shushenskoe Reservoirs on the Yenisei River. Abrupt significant cooling in May–August and warming in September-March occurred after the launch of the turbines in dams, more pronounced near the Sayano-Shushenskoe dam (up to – 0.5 °C in summer and to + 3.5 °C in winter) than near the Krasnoyarsk Reservoir headwaters (– 0.3 °C and + 1.4 °C). Significant lengthening of the warm season was also found for temperature thresholds 0–8 °C. Shifts of seasonality and intensity occurred in climatic responses of all tree-ring chronologies after development of water reservoirs. Patterns of these shifts, however, depended on species-specific sensitivity to climatic modification, distance from reservoirs, and physiographic regions. Mitigation of climate continentality and extremes by reservoirs appears to have offset possible negative effects of warming on tree growth.

Study of the Genetic Adaptation Mechanisms of Siberian Larch (Larix sibirica Ledeb.) Regarding Climatic Stresses Based on Dendrogenomic Analysis

“…These observations are corroborated by recent climate-driven decreasing trends in the grain crop yields observed in the steppe territories of the study region [85]. However, creation of large water reservoirs has so far mitigated most of the drying climatic trends in the region [86] comparing to most of continental Asia, where severely declining tree growth and forest die-off were observed recently in many places on southern and lower fringes of forested areas [6,87].…”

Factors Limiting Radial Growth of Conifers on Their Semiarid Borders across Kazakhstan

“…Spatial correlations between the chronologies of radial growth turned out to be statistically significant only within the species, but here one should take into account the enormous distances within the transect, especially between sampling sites for different species. There can be several main reasons for low correlations: The spatial heterogeneity of the precipitation and moisture regimes, in general, is one of the factors limiting tree growth in semiarid habitats [ 64 , 65 , 66 ]; Inter-species differences in climate response associated with different physiological and morphological adaptation strategies to hot and dry conditions [ 67 , 68 , 69 ]; Phenological differences in periods of active growth between climates and between species [ 70 , 71 , 72 ]; the diversity of local soil landscape and climatic conditions of the habitat (especially in mountain ecosystems), which modulate the dynamics of tree growth even within the same species and climatic zone [ 73 , 74 , 75 ]. …”

“…Phenological differences in periods of active growth between climates and between species [ 70 , 71 , 72 ];…”

Intra-annual Course of Canopy Parameters and Phenological Patterns for a Mixed Deciduous Forest Ecosystem Along the Altitudinal Gradients Within a Dam Reservoir Landscape

“…Out of those integrated factors, air-soil temperature, tree phenology-physiology and hillside altitude are the prominent ones, which principally in uence the ecological role of the forest and woodland ecosystems on those dam lakes. Conversely, construction of the dams, and then establishment of their upstream lakes also affect these forest and woodland ecosystems' air-soil temperature and associated tree phenology-physiology, primarily due to the cooling and warming effect of their repeatedly deposited water (Zhirnova et al 2021). Thereby, monitoring and analyses of these particular climatical and phenological-physiological factors not only will determine and reveal the causes of further possible changes in the quantity and quality of the dam lake waters but also will identify and clarify the reverse effects of these waters, which these factors will probably experience (Panyushkina et al 2018).…”