Geomorphological-related heterogeneity as reflected in tree growth and its relationships with climate of Monte Desert Prosopis flexuosa DC woodlands

Assessing the Sensitivity of Riparian Algarrobo Dulce (<i>Prosopis flexuosa</i> DC) Radial Growth to Hydrological Changes

“…This can be consequence of possible differences in hydrological settings among the P. flexuosa stands. In these sense, the results emerged in a previous research (Piraino et al, 2015) suggest that the proximity to a source of stable water supply, as for example an active stream, can influence the common ring growth signal, due to the minimization of the individualistic response to water-table fluctuations in a facultative phreatophytic species as P. flexuosa (Morello, 1958;Cook, 1987;Jobbágy et al, 2011).…”

“…Streamflow data, belonging to the Encón gauge station (32°13'30.10" S; 67°48'24.00" W), located at approximately 12 Km from the analyzed forest stand, were downloaded from the webpage of the "Subsecretatia de Recursos Hídricos" (available at http://www.hidricosargentina.gov.ar/acceso_bd.php). Precipitation values were obtained from the San Juan Airport gauge station (31° 34' S; 68° 25' W), placed at 100 Km from the study area and which have been successfully used in a previous dendroclimatological analysis of P. flexuosa (Piraino et al, 2015).…”

“…The two latter indexes were calculated for a 15-year window with a 14-year overlap. EPS, following a previous study performed for P. flexuosa woodlands distributed in the Central Monte Desert (Piraino et al, 2015), was considered satisfactory when surpassing a threshold of 0.75 instead of the original 0.85 value proposed by Wigley et al (1984).…”

“…Giantomasi et al, 2012Giantomasi et al, , 2013Piraino et al, 2015). Nevertheless, a comprehensive understanding of the species sensitivity to hydrological changes in riparian settings is still lacking (but see Piraino et al, 2015, for a first description of riparian P. flexuosa growth and its relation with precipitation variability).…”

“…Giantomasi et al, 2012Giantomasi et al, , 2013Piraino et al, 2015). Nevertheless, a comprehensive understanding of the species sensitivity to hydrological changes in riparian settings is still lacking (but see Piraino et al, 2015, for a first description of riparian P. flexuosa growth and its relation with precipitation variability). Furthermore, to our knowledge, while several researches examined the relation between hydrology and Prosopis forests stand structure and biomass (see for instance Stromberg et al, 1993), no study has been performed thus far regarding the dendrohydrology of any Prosopis species.…”