Contrasting effects of climate change along life stages of a dominant tree species: the importance of soil–climate interactions

Abstract

Aim For tree species, adult survival and seedling and sapling recruitment dynamics are the main processes that determine forest structure and composition. Thus, studying how these two life stages may be affected by climate change in the context of other abiotic and biotic variables is critical to understand future population trends. The aim of this study was to assess the sustainability of cork oak (Quercus suber) forests at the core of its distributional range under future climatic conditions. Location Southern Spain. Methods Using forest inventory data collected at two periods 10 years apart, we performed a comprehensive analysis to evaluate the role of different abiotic and biotic factors on adult survival and recruitment patterns. Results We found that both life stages were influenced by climatic conditions, but in different ways. Adult tree survival was negatively impacted by warmer spring temperatures, while recruitment was positively affected by warmer winter temperatures. Our results also revealed the importance of soil texture as a modulator of winter precipitation effects on adult survival. With higher winter precipitation, adult survival increased in sandy soils and decreased in clayish soils. Therefore, under predicted future climate scenarios of wetter winters and warmer temperatures, the presence of cork oaks is more likely to occur in sandy soils vs. clayish soils. Biotic conditions also affected these life stages. We found a negative effect of heterospecific but not conspecific trees on both adult survival and seedling recruitment. Main conclusions Overall, the sustainability of the studied forests will be highly dependent not only on future climatic trends, but also on their interaction with other key factors – soil properties in particular – that modulate the effects of climate on demographic rates.

Simulated big sagebrush regeneration supports predicted changes at the trailing and leading edges of distribution shifts

“…For instance, seedlings of tree species in forests of the western United States demonstrated mostly more severe range contractions than adults under recent climate change (Bell et al 2014). In southern Spain, seedlings of cork oaks may profit from warmer and wetter winters whereas adults may only do so in sandy soils (Ibáñez et al 2014). Low forests on subantartic Campbell Island (New Zealand) experienced decreased adult growth under warm and wet winters in the last 50 years, whereas regeneration is increased in warm and dry winters (Harsch et al 2014).…”

California forests show early indications of both range shifts and local persistence under climate change

“…Improved methods for detecting regeneration hotspots could also benefit from the potential connections between regeneration hotspots by dispersal. Incorporating more detailed demographic variables for hotspot detection (such as basal area or recruitment intensity as in Zhu et al, 2014) could help identify drivers along different gradients, especially if interactions between soil and climate variability were included in the analysis (Bertrand et al, 2012;Ibáñez et al, 2014). Land managers could further benefit from hotspot analyses carried out in latitude-longitude space so that regeneration hotspots could be identified explicitly (see Appendix S3).…”

Forest Adaptation to Climate Change along Steep Ecological Gradients: The Case of the Mediterranean-Temperate Transition in South-Western Europe

“…Keystone species in traditional agroforestry systems are subject to emergent diseases and pests. Holm and cork oaks are declining in the Iberian Peninsula due to a complex combination of biotic and abiotic factors [61]. Drought-stressed trees attacked by fungi in the genera Biscogniauxia and Diplodia, the Oomycete Phytophthora cinnamomi, and bark and wood borers such as Platypus cylindrus have been associated with the most serious cases [62].…”