Revealing legacy effects of extreme droughts on tree growth of oaks across the Northern Hemisphere.

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Abstract

Forests are undergoing increasing risks of drought-induced tree mortality. Species replacement patterns following mortality may have a significant impact on the global carbon cycle. Among major hardwoods, deciduous oaks (Quercus spp.) are increasingly reported as replacing dying conifers across the Northern Hemisphere. Yet, our knowledge on the growth responses of these oaks to drought is incomplete, especially regarding post-drought legacy effects. The objectives of this study were to determine the occurrence, duration, and magnitude of legacy effects of extreme droughts and how that vary across species, sites, and drought characteristics. The legacy effects were quantified by the deviation of observed from expected radial growth indices in the period 1940-2016. We used stand-level chronologies from 458 sites and 21 oak species primarily from Europe, north-eastern America, and eastern Asia. We found that legacy effects of droughts could last from 1 to 5 years after the drought and were more prolonged in dry sites. Negative legacy effects (i.e., lower growth than expected) were more prevalent after repetitive droughts in dry sites. The effect of repetitive drought was stronger in Mediterranean oaks especially in Quercus faginea. Species-specific analyses revealed that Q. petraea and Q. macrocarpa from dry sites were more negatively affected by the droughts while growth of several oak species from mesic sites increased during post-drought years. Sites showing positive correlations to winter temperature showed little to no growth depression after drought, whereas sites with a positive correlation to previous summer water balance showed decreased growth. This may indicate that although winter warming favors tree growth during droughts, previous-year summer precipitation may predispose oak trees to current-year extreme droughts. Our results revealed a massive role of repetitive droughts in determining legacy effects and highlighted how growth sensitivity to climate, drought seasonality and species-specific traits drive the legacy effects in deciduous oak species.

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Bringing together leaf trait data spanning 2,548 species and 175 sites we describe, for the first time at global scale, a universal spectrum of leaf economics consisting of key chemical, structural and physiological properties. The spectrum runs from quick to slow return on investments of nutrients and dry mass in leaves, and operates largely independently of growth form, plant functional type or biome. Categories along the spectrum would, in general, describe leaf economic variation at the global scale better than plant functional types, because functional types overlap substantially in their leaf traits. Overall, modulation of leaf traits and trait relationships by climate is surprisingly modest, although some striking and significant patterns can be seen. Reliable quantification of the leaf economics spectrum and its interaction with climate will prove valuable for modelling nutrient fluxes and vegetation boundaries under changing land-use and climate.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Sci Total Environ

Title: The Science of the total environment

Publisher: Elsevier BV

ISSN (Electronic): 1879-1026

ISSN (Print): 0048-9697

Publication date (Electronic): May 20 2024

Volume: 926

Affiliations

[1 ] WSL Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Zürcherstrasse 111, CH-8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland; Forestry and Wood Technology Discipline, Khulna University, Khulna, Bangladesh. Electronic address: arun.bose@wsl.ch.

[2 ] Institute of Botany, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Třeboň, Czech Republic; Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czech Republic.

[3 ] WSL Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Zürcherstrasse 111, CH-8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland.

[4 ] Institute of Botany, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Třeboň, Czech Republic; Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, Suchdol, 165 21, Prague 6, Czech Republic.

[5 ] Faculty of Forest and Environment, Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development, 16225 Eberswalde, Germany.

[6 ] WSL Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Zürcherstrasse 111, CH-8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland; Department of Biological Evolution, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, University of Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.

[7 ] ETH Zurich, Department of Environmental Systems Science, Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems (ITES), Universitätstrasse, 22, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland.

[8 ] Thünen Institute of Forest Ecosystems, Alfred-Moeller-Str. 1, Haus 41/42, 16225 Eberswalde, Germany.

[9 ] Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (IPE-CSIC), Avda. Montañana 1005, Apdo. 202, Zaragoza E-50192, Spain; Scuola di Scienze Agrarie, Forestali, Alimentari, e Ambientali, Università della Basilicata, Potenza, Italy.

[10 ] Departamento de Sistemas y Recursos Naturales, E.T.S.I. Montes Forestal y del Medio Natural, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Madrid, Spain.

[11 ] Southern Swedish Research Center, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Alnarp, Sweden; Institut de recherche sur les forêts, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Québec, Canada.

[12 ] WSL Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Zürcherstrasse 111, CH-8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland; ETH Zurich, Department of Environmental Systems Science, Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems (ITES), Universitätstrasse, 22, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland.

[13 ] Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic; Department of Wood Science and Wood Technology, Mendel University in Brno, Brno, Czech Republic.

[14 ] Institute of Botany, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Třeboň, Czech Republic.

[15 ] Université de Lorraine, AgroParisTech, INRAE, Silva, 54000 Nancy, France.

[16 ] Departamento de Ciencia y Tecnología Agroforestal y Genética, Universidad de Castilla La Mancha, Albacete, Spain.

[17 ] Technische Universität München, TUM School of Life Sciences, Freising, Germany; Technische Universität München, Institute for Advanced Study, Garching, Germany.

[18 ] DeLaWi Tree-Ring Analyses, 51570 Windeck, Germany.

[19 ] Departement Recherche et Développement, ONF, Office National des Fôrets, Batiment B, Boulevard de Constance, Fontainebleau F 77300, France.

[20 ] Federal Scientific Center of the East Asia Terrestrial Biodiversity, Far Eastern Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, 690022 Vladivostok, Russia.

[21 ] Harvard Forest, 324 N.Main St, Petersham, MA 01366, USA.

[22 ] National Institute for Research and Development in Forestry "Marin Dracea", Eroilor 128, 077190 Voluntari, Romania.

[23 ] DendroGreif, Institute of Botany and Landscape Ecology, University of Greifswald, Soldmannstr.15, 17487 Greifswald, Germany.

[24 ] Departamento Biología Animal, Parasitología, Ecología, Edafología y Química Agrícola, University Salamanca, 37007 Salamanca, Spain.

[25 ] Department of Geography, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Vanemuise 46, Tartu, Estonia.

[26 ] Botanical Garden-Institute of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia; Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk, Russia.

[27 ] Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (IPE-CSIC), Avda. Montañana 1005, Apdo. 202, Zaragoza E-50192, Spain.