Long-term soil water limitation and previous tree vigor drive local variability of drought-induced crown dieback in Fagus sylvatica.

Klesse, S; Wohlgemuth, T; Meusburger, K; Vitasse, Y; von Arx, G; Lévesque, M; Neycken, A; Braun, S; Dubach, V; Gessler, A; Ginzler, C; Gossner, M M; Hagedorn, F; Queloz, V; Vives, E Samblàs; Rigling, A; Frei, E R (2022). Long-term soil water limitation and previous tree vigor drive local variability of drought-induced crown dieback in Fagus sylvatica. The Science of the total environment, 851(Pt 1), p. 157926. Elsevier 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157926

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Ongoing climate warming is increasing evapotranspiration, a process that reduces plant-available water and aggravates the impact of extreme droughts during the growing season. Such an exceptional hot drought occurred in Central Europe in 2018 and caused widespread defoliation in mid-summer in European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) forests. Here, we recorded crown damage in 2021 in nine mature even-aged beech-dominated stands in northwestern Switzerland along a crown damage severity gradient (low, medium, high) and analyzed tree-ring widths of 21 mature trees per stand. We aimed at identifying predisposing factors responsible for differences in crown damage across and within stands such as tree growth characteristics (average growth rates and year-to-year variability) and site-level variables (mean canopy height, soil properties). We found that stand-level crown damage severity was strongly related to soil water availability, inferred from tree canopy height and plant available soil water storage capacity (AWC). Trees were shorter in drier stands, had higher year-to-year variability in radial growth, and showed higher growth sensitivity to moisture conditions of previous late summer than trees growing on soils with sufficient AWC, indicating that radial growth in these forests is principally limited by soil water availability. Within-stand variation of post-drought crown damage corresponded to growth rate and tree size (diameter at breast height, DBH), i.e., smaller and slower-growing trees that face more competition, were associated with increased crown damage after the 2018 drought. These findings point to tree vigor before the extreme 2018 drought (long-term relative growth rate) as an important driver of damage severity within and across stands. Our results suggest that European beech is less likely to be able to cope with future climate change-induced extreme droughts on shallow soils with limited water retention capacity.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Institute of Geological Sciences

UniBE Contributor:

von Arx, Georg

Subjects:

500 Science > 550 Earth sciences & geology

ISSN:

1879-1026

Publisher:

Elsevier

Language:

English

Submitter:

Pubmed Import

Date Deposited:

22 Aug 2022 10:38

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 16:22

Publisher DOI:

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157926

PubMed ID:

35985592

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Climate sensitivity Competition Crown damage European beech Tree rings Tree size

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/172212

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/172212

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