Revealing legacy effects of extreme droughts on tree growth of oaks across the Northern Hemisphere - INRAE - Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement Access content directly
Journal Articles Science of the Total Environment Year : 2024

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

Jiri Doležal
  • Function : Author
Eva Koňasová
  • Function : Author
François Lebourgeois
  • Function : Author
Burkhard Neuwirth
  • Function : Author
Manuel Nicolas
  • Function : Author
Alexander Mikhaylovich Omelko
  • Function : Author
Neil Pederson
  • Function : Author
Any Mary Petritan
  • Function : Author
Andreas Rigling
  • Function : Author
Michal Rybníček
  • Function : Author
Tobias Scharnweber
  • Function : Author
Jens Schröder
  • Function : Author
Fernando Silla
  • Function : Author
Irena Sochová
  • Function : Author
Kristina Sohar
  • Function : Author
Olga Nikolaevna Ukhvatkina
  • Function : Author
Anna Stepanovna Vozmishcheva
  • Function : Author
Roman Zweifel
  • Function : Author
J. Julio Camarero
  • Function : Author

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.

Dates and versions

hal-04684838 , version 1 (03-09-2024)

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Cite

Arun Bose, Jiri Doležal, Daniel Scherrer, Jan Altman, Daniel Ziche, et al.. Revealing legacy effects of extreme droughts on tree growth of oaks across the Northern Hemisphere. Science of the Total Environment, 2024, 926, pp.172049. ⟨10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.172049⟩. ⟨hal-04684838⟩
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