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Giberti GS, von Arx G, Giovannelli A, du Toit B, Unterholzner L, Bielak K, Carrer M, Uhl E, Bravo F, Tonon G, Wellstein C. The admixture of Quercus sp. in Pinus sylvestris stands influences wood anatomical trait responses to climatic variability and drought events. FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE 2023; 14:1213814. [PMID: 38034580 PMCID: PMC10687546 DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1213814] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2023] [Accepted: 10/24/2023] [Indexed: 12/02/2023]
Abstract
Introduction Forests are threatened by increasingly severe and more frequent drought events worldwide. Mono-specific forests, developed as a consequence of widespread management practices established early last century, seem particularly susceptible to global warming and drought compared with mixed-species forests. Although, in several contexts, mixed-species forests display higher species diversity, higher productivity, and higher resilience, previous studies highlighted contrasting findings, with not only many positive but also neutral or negative effects on tree performance that could be related to tree species diversity. Processes underlying this relationship need to be investigated. Wood anatomical traits are informative proxies of tree functioning, and they can potentially provide novel long-term insights in this regard. However, wood anatomical traits are critically understudied in such a context. Here, we assess the role of tree admixture on Pinus sylvestris L. xylem traits such as mean hydraulic diameter, cell wall thickness, and anatomical wood density, and we test the variability of these traits in response to climatic parameters such as temperature, precipitation, and drought event frequency and intensity. Methods Three monocultural plots of P. sylvestris and three mixed-stand plots of P. sylvestris and Quercus sp. were identified in Poland and Spain, representing Continental and Mediterranean climate types, respectively. In each plot, we analyzed xylem traits from three P. sylvestris trees, for a total of nine trees in monocultures and nine in mixed stands per study location. Results The results highlighted that anatomical wood density was one of the most sensitive traits to detect tree responses to climatic conditions and drought under different climate and forest types. Inter-specific facilitation mechanisms were detected in the admixture between P. sylvestris and Quercus sp., especially during the early growing season and during stressful events such as spring droughts, although they had negligible effects in the late growing season. Discussion Our findings suggest that the admixture between P. sylvestris and Quercus sp. increases the resilience of P. sylvestris to extreme droughts. In a global warming scenario, this admixture could represent a useful adaptive management option.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giulia Silvia Giberti
- Faculty of Agricultural, Environmental and Food Sciences, Free University of Bolzano - Bozen, Bolzano, Italy
| | - Georg von Arx
- Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
- Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Alessio Giovannelli
- Istituto di Ricerca sugli Ecosistemi Terrestri (IRET), Consiglio Nazionale Ricerche, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
- National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC), Palermo, Italy
| | - Ben du Toit
- Department of Forest and Wood Science, Faculty of AgriSciences, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa
| | - Lucrezia Unterholzner
- Department of Land Environment Agriculture and Forestry, University of Padova, Legnaro, Italy
- Chair of Forest Growth and Woody Biomass Production, Technische Universität Dresden, Tharandt, Germany
| | - Kamil Bielak
- Department of Silviculture, Institute of Forest Sciences, Warsaw University of Life Sciences-SGGW, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Marco Carrer
- Department of Land Environment Agriculture and Forestry, University of Padova, Legnaro, Italy
| | - Enno Uhl
- School of Life Sciences, Chair for Forest Growth and Yield Science, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Freising, Germany
- Bavarian State Institute of Forestry (LWF), Freising, Germany
| | - Felipe Bravo
- Instituto Universitario de Investigación en Gestión Forestal Sostenible (iuFOR). Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenierías Agrarias de Palencia, Universidad de Valladolid, Palencia, Spain
| | - Giustino Tonon
- Faculty of Agricultural, Environmental and Food Sciences, Free University of Bolzano - Bozen, Bolzano, Italy
| | - Camilla Wellstein
- Faculty of Agricultural, Environmental and Food Sciences, Free University of Bolzano - Bozen, Bolzano, Italy
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Venturas MD, Todd HN, Trugman AT, Anderegg WRL. Understanding and predicting forest mortality in the western United States using long-term forest inventory data and modeled hydraulic damage. THE NEW PHYTOLOGIST 2021; 230:1896-1910. [PMID: 33112415 DOI: 10.1111/nph.17043] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/17/2020] [Accepted: 10/20/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Global warming is expected to exacerbate the duration and intensity of droughts in the western United States, which may lead to increased tree mortality. A prevailing proximal mechanism of drought-induced tree mortality is hydraulic damage, but predicting tree mortality from hydraulic theory and climate data still remains a major scientific challenge. We used forest inventory data and a plant hydraulic model (HM) to address three questions: can we capture regional patterns of drought-induced tree mortality with HM-predicted damage thresholds; do HM metrics improve predictions of mortality across broad spatial areas; and what are the dominant controls of forest mortality when considering stand characteristics, climate metrics, and simulated hydraulic stress? We found that the amount of variance explained by models predicting mortality was limited (R2 median = 0.10, R2 range: 0.00-0.52). HM outputs, including hydraulic damage and carbon assimilation diagnostics, moderately improve mortality prediction across the western US compared with models using stand and climate predictors alone. Among factors considered, metrics of stand density and tree size tended to be some of the most critical factors explaining mortality, probably highlighting the important roles of structural overshoot, stand development, and biotic agent host selection and outbreaks in mortality patterns.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martin D Venturas
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA
| | - Henry N Todd
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA
| | - Anna T Trugman
- Department of Geography, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA
| | - William R L Anderegg
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA
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Sviderskaya IV, Vaganov EA, Fonti MV, Fonti P. Isometric scaling to model water transport in conifer tree rings across time and environments. JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BOTANY 2021; 72:2672-2685. [PMID: 33367718 PMCID: PMC8006552 DOI: 10.1093/jxb/eraa595] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/15/2020] [Accepted: 12/17/2020] [Indexed: 05/30/2023]
Abstract
The hydraulic properties of xylem determine the ability of plants to efficiently and safely provide water to their leaves. These properties are key to understanding plant responses to environmental conditions and evaluating their fate under a rapidly changing climate. However, their assessment is hindered by the challenges of quantifying basic hydraulic components such as bordered pits and tracheids. Here, we use isometric scaling between tracheids and pit morphology to merge partial hydraulic models of the tracheid component and to upscale these properties to the tree-ring level in conifers. Our new model output is first cross-validated with the literature and then applied to cell anatomical measurements from Larix sibirica tree rings formed under harsh conditions in southern Siberia to quantify the intra- and inter-annual variability in hydraulic properties. The model provides a means of assessing how different-sized tracheid components contribute to the hydraulic properties of the ring. Upscaled results indicate that natural inter- and intra-ring anatomical variations have a substantial impact on the tree's hydraulic properties. Our model facilitates the assessment of important xylem functional attributes because it requires only the more accessible measures of cross-sectional tracheid size. This approach, if applied to dated tree rings, provides a novel way to investigate xylem structure-function relationships across time and environmental conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Eugene A Vaganov
- Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation
- V.N. Sukachev Institute of Forest, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation
| | - Marina V Fonti
- Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation
| | - Patrick Fonti
- Dendrosciences, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Zürcherstrasse, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
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Gessler A, Bottero A, Marshall J, Arend M. The way back: recovery of trees from drought and its implication for acclimation. THE NEW PHYTOLOGIST 2020; 228:1704-1709. [PMID: 32452535 DOI: 10.1111/nph.16703] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2020] [Accepted: 05/18/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Arthur Gessler
- Forest Dynamics, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, Birmensdorf, 8903, Switzerland
- Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, ETH Zurich, Universitätsstrasse 16, Zurich, 8092, Switzerland
- SwissForestLab, Birmensdorf, Zürcherstrasse 111, Birmensdorf, 8903, Switzerland
| | - Alessandra Bottero
- Forest Dynamics, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, Birmensdorf, 8903, Switzerland
- SwissForestLab, Birmensdorf, Zürcherstrasse 111, Birmensdorf, 8903, Switzerland
| | - John Marshall
- Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Skogens ekologi och skötsel, Umeå, 901 83, Sweden
| | - Matthias Arend
- Department of Environmental Sciences - Botany, University of Basel, Schönbeinstrasse 6, Basel, 4056, Switzerland
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