Divergent tree radial growth at alpine coniferous forest ecotone and corresponding responses to climate change in northwestern China

Wang, Xiaofeng; Yang, Bao

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.107052

Cited by 16 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…High-elevation areas had lower temperatures and higher precipitation than low-elevation areas (Jiang et al, 2007). Gray cinnamonic soils prevail in this area (Wang and Yang, 2021). It is robust evidence of local vegetation evolution in northern China and its relationship with East Asian summer winds (Cheng et al, 2020).…”

Section: Study Area and Vegetation Surveyingmentioning

confidence: 78%

Plant community assembly is jointly shaped by environmental and dispersal filtering along elevation gradients in a semiarid area, China

Zheng

Arif²,

He³

et al. 2022

Front. Plant Sci.

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Environmental filtering (EF) and dispersal filtering (DF) are widely known to shape plant community assembly. Particularly in arid and semi-arid mountainous regions, however, it remains unclear whether EF or DF dominate in the community assembly of different life forms or how they interact along elevational gradients. This research aims to reveal how different ecological processes influence herbaceous and woody community assembly and how they respond to various environmental drivers and elevational gradients. Here we integrated taxonomic diversity (TD), phylogenetic diversity (PD), and ecological drivers across an elevational gradient of 1,420 m in the Helan Mountain Nature Reserve, in typical arid and semi-arid areas of China. This study showed that the TD and PD of herbaceous communities significantly increase linearly with changing elevation gradients, while woody ‘TD’ showed a unimodal pattern, and there was little relationship between woody ‘PD’ and elevation. Herbaceous species exhibited significant phylogenetic clustering at low elevations, where they were influenced by climate, aspect, and tree cover. However, woody species exhibited random patterns across elevations. Herbaceous and woody species’ taxonomic and phylogenetic beta diversity is governed primarily by spatial turnover rather than nestedness. Spatial turnover is caused primarily by EF and DF’s combined influence, but their relative importance differs between herbaceous and woody communities. Therefore, we conclude that the responses of herbaceous and woody plants along elevation gradients in the Helan Mountains are decoupled due to their different adaptation strategies to climate factors in the drylands. These findings are important for understanding the assembly mechanisms driving plant communities in dryland under the context of dramatic increases in drought driven by climate warming.

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Section: Study Area and Vegetation Surveyingmentioning

confidence: 78%

Plant community assembly is jointly shaped by environmental and dispersal filtering along elevation gradients in a semiarid area, China

Zheng

Arif²,

He³

et al. 2022

Front. Plant Sci.

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“…To reduce the impact of individual differences between trees, the raw tree-ring width sequence was transformed into a standard and dimensionless ring-width index using the function “detrend” from the “dplR” package ( Bunn, 2008 ) in R software. The standard chronology can accurately reflect the changes in tree growth patterns and the associated climatic factors ( Wang and Yang, 2021 ). Additionally, the detrended tree-ring width indices were averaged using a robust biweight mean, with the function “chron” from the “dplR” package in R, to obtain the standard chronology.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dendroclimatic response of Pinus tabuliformis Carr. along an altitudinal gradient in the warm temperate region of China

et al. 2023

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IntroductionGlobal climate change can affect the sensitivity of tree radial growth to climate factors, but the specific responses of tree radial growth to microclimate along the altitudinal gradient in the long term are still unclear.MethodsIn this study, the tree-ring width chronologies of Pinus tabuliformis Carr. in Shanxi Province of China were studied at three altitude gradients (1200-1300 m (low altitude), 1300-1400 m (medium altitude) and 1400-1500 m (high altitude)) during 1958-2017.ResultsThe results showed that (1) the climate background could be divided into two periods based on the Mann-Kendall test analysis: 1958–1996 was a stable period (mean annual temperature (MAT)=10.25°C, mean annual precipitation (MAP)=614.39 mm), and 1997–2017 was a rapid change period (MAT=10.91°C, MAP=564.70 mm), indicating a warming and drying trend in the study region. (2) The radial growth of P. tabuliformis at different altitudes showed inconsistent variation patterns. The tree radial growth at low and medium altitudes (CV=27.01% for low altitude and CV=24.69% for medium altitude) showed larger variation amplitudes during the rapid change period than that in the stable period (CV=12.40% for low altitude and CV=18.42% for medium altitude). In contrast to the increasing trend, the tree radial growth rates at the high altitude showed a decreasing trend across years. (3) In the stable period, the radial growth of P. tabuliformis at the low altitude showed a significantly negative response to temperature and a positive response to precipitation in May and June. The tree radial growth at the medium altitude was positively related to precipitation in June and minimum temperature in February. The tree growth at the high altitude was mainly positively correlated with the temperature in May and August. In the rapid change period, the radial growth of P. tabuliformis at the low altitude was affected by more meteorological factors than that in the stable period. Medium-altitude trees were positively influenced by precipitation in June and minimum temperature in January, whereas high-altitude trees responded positively to wind speed in February. (4) Along altitudinal gradients, tree radial growth was more related to temperature than precipitation in the stable period. The tree radial growth at the high altitude during the rapid change period was only affected by wind speed in February, whereas the tree radial growth at low and medium altitudes was mainly affected by temperature to a similar extent during the two periods.DiscussionThe study indicated that tree growth-climate response models could help deeply understand the impact of climate change on tree growth adaptation and would be beneficial for developing sustainable management policies for forest ecosystems in the transition zone from warm-temperate to subtropical climates.

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“…The Helan Mountains in northern China form a boundary between arid and semi‐arid areas. Many dendroclimatic and dendroecological studies have investigated the effects of drought on tree growth (Gao, Rossi, & Yang, 2021; Gao, Yang, et al., 2021; Gao et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2020; Wang & Yang, 2021; Zeng et al., 2020). On an interannual scale, under the influence of increased drought intensity in recent decades, both Chinese pine and Qinghai Spruce ( Picea crassifolia ) showed radial growth decline (Wang et al., 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Seasonally Varying Tree Physiological Response to Environmental Conditions: Results From Semi‐Arid China

et al. 2023

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Drought is the primary limiting factor for tree growth in water‐stressed regions through its effects on xylem development. In this study, we developed intra‐annual series of tree‐ring stable carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) isotopes from Chinese pine (Pinus tabuliformis) to investigate the ecophysiological responses of trees to drought during the growing season in a climatic transition zone between arid and semi‐arid areas in north‐central China. Distinct intra‐annual patterns of δ13C and δ18O were revealed, with average annual amplitude of 0.26 and 2.72‰, respectively. Tree‐ring δ13C values increased from the early‐ to mid‐growing season, peaked in the mid‐to‐late‐growing season, and decreased at the end of the growing season. In contrast, δ18O values continuously decreased throughout the growing season. As expected, drought significantly increased δ13C and altered its intra‐annual pattern, particularly toward the end of the growing season. However, there was no significant difference in the average intra‐annual pattern in δ18O between dry and wet years. The tree‐ring δ18O at the end of the growing season was significantly correlated with the September to October average soil water δ18O, as simulated by a global isotope‐enabled climate model, which is consistent with the high proportion of exchangeable oxygen atoms predicted by previous studies for cellulose synthesis in the late growing season.

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Divergent tree radial growth at alpine coniferous forest ecotone and corresponding responses to climate change in northwestern China

Cited by 16 publications

References 51 publications

Plant community assembly is jointly shaped by environmental and dispersal filtering along elevation gradients in a semiarid area, China

Plant community assembly is jointly shaped by environmental and dispersal filtering along elevation gradients in a semiarid area, China

Dendroclimatic response of Pinus tabuliformis Carr. along an altitudinal gradient in the warm temperate region of China

A Seasonally Varying Tree Physiological Response to Environmental Conditions: Results From Semi‐Arid China

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