Cumulative Drought Stress Leads to a Loss of Growth Resilience and Explains Higher Mortality in Planted than in Naturally Regenerated Pinus pinaster Stands

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Author
Navarro Cerrillo, Rafael M.
Rodríguez, Carlos
Silveiro, Emidio
Hortal, Antonio
Palacios Rodríguez, Guillermo
Duque Lazo, Joaquín
Camarero, J. Julio
Publisher
MDPIDate
2018Subject
AndalusiaClimate change
Dendroecolology
Drought stress
Forest dieback
Growth resilience
Pinus pinaster
Plantation
Tree mortality
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Show full item recordAbstract
The assessment of the long-term impacts of drought on tree growth decline using tree-ring
analyses may be used to test if plantations are more vulnerable to warming after successive
droughts, leading to a “cumulative stress” effect. We selected 76 Pinus pinaster trees (declining and
non-declining trees), and basal area increments over the last 20 years (BAI20) were calculated to build
the chronologies for the stand types and vigor classes. Resistance, recovery and resilience indices
were calculated. Pearson correlations, analyses and Partial Least-Squares regression were used to
analyze the relationships among the response and environmental variables. We found a negative and
significant relationship between mean temperature for May and June of the current year and growth
in the naturally regenerated stands. This negative effect on growth under warm spring conditions
was more noticeable in plantations than in naturally regenerated stands. A negative trend along time
was found for the resilience index in planted stands. Evapotranspiration, maximum temperature
and annual radiation showed significant and negative correlations with the growth of declining trees
from planted stands, indicating they are susceptible to drought stress. Declining trees in planted
stands showed a loss of growth resilience, specifically a negative trend after successive droughts.