Growth response of five co-occurring conifers to drought across a wide climatic gradient in Central Europe

Root architecture might account for contrasting establishment success of Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii and Pinus sylvestris in Central Europe under dry conditions

“…On the one hand, this implies that Pseudotsuga menziesii has only a low potential to spontaneously spread from plantations in drier regions of Central Europe, especially since climate change models project longer dry spells in the future (Lindner et al 2014). On the other hand, extending plantations of Pseudotsuga menziesii from the current suitable range of Picea abies to that of Pinus sylvestris, as suggested by recent reports of higher radial growth rates of adult Pseudotsuga menziesii compared to Pinus sylvestris under dry conditions (Eilmann and Rigling 2012;Lévesque et al 2014), has to be evaluated carefully. Since the early life stages of Pseudotsuga menziesii rely almost exclusively on the water available in the top soil, costly irrigation would be necessary to establish the species in dryer regions, such as lower elevations in Central Alpine valleys (Eilmann and Rigling 2012).…”

“…3). The accumulation of fine roots in the upper soil layers seems to allow the species to efficiently exploit soil nutrients (Mauer and Palatova 2012) and might be the reason why Pseudotsuga menziesii, once established, is able to maintain high radial growth rates also under drier conditions (Eilmann and Rigling 2012;Lévesque et al 2014). Plant available water in the upper soil layers is, on the other hand, strongly tied to single precipitation events (Rennenberg et al 2006), which may put seedlings at risk of desiccation during long dry periods.…”

“…menziesii. The latter was introduced to Europe in 1827 and first cultivation trials took place in Central Europe by the end of the nineteenth century (Kowarik and Rabitsch 2010;Tschopp et al 2015). Pseudotsuga menziesii var.…”

Alpine Forest Drought Monitoring in South Tyrol: PCA Based Synergy between scPDSI Data and MODIS Derived NDVI and NDII7 Time Series

“…Finally, the 4COVnNDII7 [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] , 4COVnNDII7 [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] ROT4V and 4COVnNDII7 [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] ROT4P demonstrated NDII7 decline not before 2004. This distinction could be, among others, attributed to different adaptation strategies to drought and persistent aridity stress, which are controlled by environmental conditions (e.g., [30,95]), tree species (e.g., [21,24,83]) or local tree competition (e.g., [18,27,29,96,97]). Furthermore, some tree species response to drought can be physiologically lagged [27,30].…”

Potenziale und Risiken eingeführter Baumarten

“…Sommertrockenheit verträgt sie besser als die heimischen Nadelhölzer (Lévesque et al 2013(Lévesque et al , 2014. In Mittelgebirgslagen kann es zu Schnee-und Eisbruchschäden in den Kronen kommen (Schober et al 1983), die die Douglasie in der Regel ohne Stammfäule wieder auswächst.…”