Divergent growth trends and climatic response of Picea obovata along elevational gradient in Western Sayan mountains, Siberia

In mountain ecosystems,plants are sensitive to climate changes,and an entire range of species distribution can be observed in a small area.Therefore,mountains are of great interest for climate–growth relationship analysis.In this study,the Siberian spruce’s(Picea obovata Ledeb.)radial growth and its climatic response were investigated in the Western Sayan Mountains,near the SayanoShushenskoe Reservoir.Sampling was performed at three sites along an elevational gradient:at the lower border of the species range,in the middle,and at the treeline.Divergence of growth trends between individual trees was observed at each site,with microsite landscape-soil conditions as the most probable driver of this phenomenon.Cluster analysis of individual tree-ring width series based on inter-serial correlation was carried out,resulting in two sub-set chronologies being developed for each site.These chronologies appear to have substantial differences in their climatic responses,mainly during the cold season.This response was not constant due to regional climatic change and the local influence of the nearby Sayano-Shushenskoe Reservoir.The main response of spruce to growing season conditions has a typical elevational pattern expected in mountains:impact of temperature shifts with elevation from positive to negative,and impact of precipitation shifts in the opposite direction.Chronologies of trees,growing under more severe micro-conditions,are very sensitive to temperature during September–April and to precipitation during October–December,and they record both inter-annual and long-term climatic variation.Consequently,it would be interesting to test if they indicate the Siberian High anticyclone,which is the main driver of these climatic factors.

Dynamics of moisture regime and its reconstruction from a tree-ring width chronology of Pinus sylvestris in the downstream basin of the Selenga River, Russia

Regional tree-ring width chronology of the Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) was constructed from 8 sites in the forest-steppe belt situated in the foothills of the Selenga River basin, Russia. Moisture information contained in tree-ring width chronology was obtained through linear regression reconstruction models of annual August–July precipitation and annual water discharge of the Selenga River during the period 1767–2015. Comparison of the smoothed series allowed estimating long-term variation component of these moisture regime parameters with a high precision. At the same time, regional drought indices are less correlated with pine radial growth, because they have contribution of the other environmental variables, which are much less reflected in the tree-ring of the investigated pine forest stands. Reconstructed dynamic of the moisture regime parameters is supported by documental evident of many socially significant events in the regional history, such as crop failures caused by both droughts and floods, and catastrophic fire in the Irkutsk City in 1879. Also, dependence of the amount of precipitation in the study area on the atmospheric circulation in Central Asia is revealed to have a similar pattern with other regions, i.e., a negative relationship of precipitation with the development of large high atmospheric pressure area within its center in the Altai and Tianshan mountains.

Warming induced changes in wood matter accumulation in tracheid walls of spruce

The warming-driven increase of the vegetation season length impacts both net productivity and phenology of plants, changing an annual carbon cycle of terrestrial ecosystems. To evaluate this influence, tree growth along the temperature gradients can be investigated on various organization levels, beginning from detailed climatic records in xylem cells’ number and morphometric parameters. In this study, the Borus Ridge of the Western Sayan Mountains(South Siberia) was considered as a forest area under rapid climate change caused by massive Sayano-Shushenskoe reservoir. Several parameters of the xylem anatomical structure in Siberian spruce(Picea obovata Ledeb.)were derived from normalized tracheidograms of cell radial diameter and cell wall thickness and analyzed during 50 years across elevational gradient(at 520,960, and 1320 m a.s.l.). On the regional scale, the main warming by 0.42°C per decade occurs during cold period(November–March). Construction of the reservoir accelerated local warming substantially since 1980, when abrupt shift of the cold season temperature by 2.6°C occurred. It led to the vegetation season beginning 3-6 days earlier and ending 4-10 day later with more stable summer heat supply. Two spatial patterns were found in climatic response of maximal cell wall thickness:(1)temperature has maximal impact during 21-day period, and its seasonality shifts with elevation in tune with temperature gradient;(2) response to the date of temperature passing +9.5°C threshold is observed at two higher sites. Climate change yielded significantly bigger early wood spruce tracheids at all sites, but its impact on cell wall deposition process had elevational gradient: maximal wall thickness increased by 7.9% at the treeline, by 18.2% mid-range,and decreased by 4.9% at the lower boundary of spruce growth;normalized total cell wall area increased by 6.2%-6.8% at two higher sites but remained stable at the lowest one. We believe that these patterns are caused by two mechanisms of spruce secondary growth cessation: "emergency"induced by temperature drop versus "regular" one in warmer conditions. Therefore, autumn lengthening of growth season stimulated wood matter accumulation in tracheid walls mainly in cold environment,increasing role of boreal and mountain forests in carbon cycle.