Key message
An influence of the recent changes in temperature or rainfall was demonstrated, increasing background tree mortality rates for 2/3 of the 12 studied tree species. Climate change-induced ...tree mortality was exacerbated towards the warm or dry limits of the species ranges, suggesting in these areas a progressive replacement by more xeric species.
Context
Despite the identification of climate change effects on tree mortality in various biomes, the characterization of species-specific areas of vulnerability remains poorly understood.
Aims
We sought to assess if the effects of temperature and rainfall changes on background tree mortality rates, which did not result from abrupt disturbances, were linked to climate change intensity only, or if they also depended on the tree’s location along climatic gradients.
Methods
We modelled background mortality for 12 of the most common European tree species using 265,056 trees including 4384 dead trees from the French national forest inventory. To explain mortality, we considered variables linked to tree characteristics, stand attributes, logging intensity and site environmental characteristics, and climate change effects.
Results
We found an influence of temperature and rainfall changes on 9 species out of 12. For 8 of them, climate change-induced tree mortality was exacerbated towards the warm or dry limits of the species ranges.
Conclusion
These results highlight that tree mortality varies according to the climate change intensity and the tree location along temperature and rainfall gradients. They strengthen the poleward and upward shifts of trees forecasted from climate envelope models for a large number of European tree species.
Increases in tree mortality rates have been highlighted in different biomes over the past decades. However, disentangling the effects of climate change on the temporal increase in tree mortality from ...those of management and forest dynamics remains a challenge. Using a modelling approach taking tree and stand characteristics into account, we sought to evaluate the impact of climate change on background mortality for the most common European tree species. We focused on background mortality, which is the mortality observed in a stand in the absence of abrupt disturbances, to avoid confusion with mortality events unrelated to long-term changes in temperature and rainfall. We studied 372 974 trees including 7312 dead trees from forest inventory data surveyed across France between 2009 and 2015. Factors related to competition, stand characteristics, management intensity, and site conditions were the expected preponderant drivers of mortality. Taking these main drivers into account, we detected a climate change signal on 45% of the 43 studied species, explaining an average 6% of the total modelled mortality. For 18 out of the 19 species sensitive to climate change, we evidenced greater mortality with increasing temperature or decreasing rainfall. By quantifying the mortality excess linked to the current climate change for European temperate forest tree species, we provide new insights into forest vulnerability that will prove useful for adapting forest management to future conditions.
•Tree competition, stand structure and composition mainly drive tree mortality.•Recent climate change increase tree mortality for the main European tree species.•This over-mortality was greater for ...suppressed than for small or large dominant trees.•Over-mortality of suppressed trees was mainly related to temperature increase.•Over-mortality of large dominant trees was mainly related to rainfall decrease.
Changes in temperature and rainfall linked to recent climate change increase the mortality rates of European temperate tree species. The economic importance of trees and the ecosystem services they provide differ according to their social status (dominant or suppressed trees) and their size. The extent to which climate change impacts these different categories in different ways remains little explored.
Ecophysiological differences between tree size and status suggest different sensitivities to climate change. Dominant trees are exposed to more evapotranspiration than suppressed trees that benefit from buffered climatic conditions. Large trees are able to develop a network of fine roots that allow deeper water and nutrient uptake during water shortage periods, but that have higher water requirements and more physical constraints than small trees due to the fact that they must lift water to greater heights.
We used 207,100 trees from the French forest inventory data (including 3,514 dead trees), representing eight common European tree species. For each species, we separated the tree population into three subsets of suppressed, small dominant and large dominant trees. For each subset, we modelled the mortality observed in a stand in the absence of disturbances (background mortality), with a focus on the differences in sensitivity to recent changes in temperature and rainfall.
After having taken the main mortality drivers related to competition into account, as well as stand characteristics including logging intensity effect, we assessed the over-mortality linked to the recent changes in temperature and rainfall for each of the three subsets.
When considering both changes in temperature and rainfall, the climate change related to over-mortality was greater for suppressed than for small or large dominant trees, for all the species. Over-mortality of suppressed trees was related to temperature increase, whereas a maximum vulnerability related to rainfall decrease was observed for large dominant trees.
Over-mortality driven by climate change not only concerns large and dominant trees, but small and especially suppressed ones as well. These results suggest that in addition to wood production, forest renewal and ecosystem services associated with understorey vegetation are threatened by the recent changes in temperature and rainfall in European temperate forests.
Background mortality drivers of European tree species Taccoen, Adrien; Piedallu, Christian; Seynave, Ingrid ...
Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences,
04/2019, Letnik:
286, Številka:
1900
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Increases in tree mortality rates have been highlighted in different biomes over the past decades. However, disentangling the effects of climate change on the temporal increase in tree mortality from ...those of management and forest dynamics remains a challenge. Using a modelling approach taking tree and stand characteristics into account, we sought to evaluate the impact of climate change on background mortality for the most common European tree species. We focused on background mortality, which is the mortality observed in a stand in the absence of abrupt disturbances, to avoid confusion with mortality events unrelated to long-term changes in temperature and rainfall. We studied 372 974 trees including 7312 dead trees from forest inventory data surveyed across France between 2009 and 2015. Factors related to competition, stand characteristics, management intensity, and site conditions were the expected preponderant drivers of mortality. Taking these main drivers into account, we detected a climate change signal on 45% of the 43 studied species, explaining an average 6% of the total modelled mortality. For 18 out of the 19 species sensitive to climate change, we evidenced greater mortality with increasing temperature or decreasing rainfall. By quantifying the mortality excess linked to the current climate change for European temperate forest tree species, we provide new insights into forest vulnerability that will prove useful for adapting forest management to future conditions.
The humid tropics are exposed to an unprecedented modernisation of agriculture involving rapid and mixed land-use changes with contrasted environmental impacts. Afforestation is often mentioned as an ...unambiguous solution for restoring ecosystem services and enhancing biodiversity. One consequence of afforestation is the alteration of streamflow variability which controls habitats, water resources, and flood risks. We demonstrate that afforestation by tree planting or by natural forest regeneration can induce opposite hydrological changes. An observatory including long-term field measurements of fine-scale land-use mosaics and of hydrometeorological variables has been operating in several headwater catchments in tropical southeast Asia since 2000. The GR2M water balance model, repeatedly calibrated over successive 1-year periods and used in simulation mode with the same year of rainfall input, allowed the hydrological effect of land-use change to be isolated from that of rainfall variability in two of these catchments in Laos and Vietnam. Visual inspection of hydrographs, correlation analyses, and trend detection tests allowed causality between land-use changes and changes in seasonal streamflow to be ascertained. In Laos, the combination of shifting cultivation system (alternation of rice and fallow) and the gradual increase of teak tree plantations replacing fallow led to intricate streamflow patterns: pluri-annual streamflow cycles induced by the shifting system, on top of a gradual streamflow increase over years caused by the spread of the plantations. In Vietnam, the abandonment of continuously cropped areas combined with patches of mix-trees plantations led to the natural re-growth of forest communities followed by a gradual drop in streamflow. Soil infiltrability controlled by surface crusting is the predominant process explaining why two modes of afforestation (natural regeneration vs. planting) led to opposite changes in streamflow regime. Given that commercial tree plantations will continue to expand in the humid tropics, careful consideration is needed before attributing to them positive effects on water and soil conservation.
The humid tropics are exposed to an unprecedented modernisation of agriculture involving rapid and mixed land-use changes with contrasted environmental impacts. Afforestation is often mentioned as an ...unambiguous solution for restoring ecosystem services and enhancing biodiversity. One consequence of afforestation is the alteration of streamflow variability which controls habitats, water resources, and flood risks. We demonstrate that afforestation by tree planting or by natural forest regeneration can induce opposite hydrological changes. An observatory including long-term field measurements of fine-scale land-use mosaics and of hydrometeorological variables has been operating in several headwater catchments in tropical southeast Asia since 2000. The GR2M water balance model, repeatedly calibrated over successive 1-year periods and used in simulation mode with the same year of rainfall input, allowed the hydrological effect of land-use change to be isolated from that of rainfall variability in two of these catchments in Laos and Vietnam. Visual inspection of hydrographs, correlation analyses, and trend detection tests allowed causality between land-use changes and changes in seasonal streamflow to be ascertained. In Laos, the combination of shifting cultivation system (alternation of rice and fallow) and the gradual increase of teak tree plantations replacing fallow led to intricate streamflow patterns: pluri-annual streamflow cycles induced by the shifting system, on top of a gradual streamflow increase over years caused by the spread of the plantations. In Vietnam, the abandonment of continuously cropped areas combined with patches of mix-trees plantations led to the natural re-growth of forest communities followed by a gradual drop in streamflow. Soil infiltrability controlled by surface crusting is the predominant process explaining why two modes of afforestation (natural regeneration vs. planting) led to opposite changes in streamflow regime. Given that commercial tree plantations will continue to expand in the humid tropics, careful consideration is needed before attributing to them positive effects on water and soil conservation.
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