Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Part 1: Defining the issues and setting the stage Part 2: FOREST DEMOGRAPHY: Ongoing changes Possible future changes Part 3: FOREST GROWTH: Ongoing changes Possible future changes Part 4: A call to action
Already, climate has been linked to episodes of broad-scale forest die-back in the mountainous West Drought
(e.g., southern Calif.)
Warming
(e.g., British Columbia)
Credit: USFS
But whats happening and likely to happen in the bulk of mountain forests in the West, which have not experienced extensive die-back?
Why care?
Recent studies of healthy forests in the American tropics show that substantial directional changes are in progress, with potentially profound consequences.
Credit: Nate Stephenson
Tropical forest COMPOSITION is changing (e.g., lianas [woody vines] are increasing)
Tropical forest DYNAMICS are changing (e.g., recruitment, growth, and mortality rates are increasing)
Recruitment Mortality
Tropical forest STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION are changing (e.g., aboveground biomass, hence C storage, may be increasing) Basal area gain Basal area loss
Difference
Our questions:
In the bulk of mountain forests in the West (which have not experienced extensive die-back): Are climatically-driven changes in progress?
What might we expect for the future?
Our questions:
In the bulk of mountain forests in the West (which have not experienced extensive die-back): Are climatically-driven changes in progress?
What might we expect for the future?
Our approach:
Here, we will address each question separately for:
Forest demography Forest growth
DEMOGRAPHY determines NUMBERS of trees (birth, natality, recruitment & death, mortality)
TOGETHER, demography and growth rates give us a forest (structure, composition, productivity, and dynamics)
Possible cause:
Summers are getting longer and drier. Snowpack has been decreasing over most of the West in recent decades
200
0.0
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
Year
van Mantgem & Stephenson, in prep.
2.5
The recent southwestern drought was not exceptional (it was wetter than the1950s drought), but the temperature was higher Annual precipitation (mm) Annual temperature (C)
Year
But what about forests that are not primed for a similar die-back? Specifically,
Forests that are currently temperature-limited, not waterlimited (e.g., high-elevation forests, coastal rain forests). Forests that may currently be water-limited, but that will experience substantially increased precipitation.
Globally, forests of productive environments have higher turnover rates (mortality and recruitment) ... ... at least partly because environments that favor tree growth also favor the organisms that kill trees.
5
5
4 3 2 1 0
Forest turnover (% yr )
-1
158 50
84 46
30
4 3 2 1 0
27 Temperate27 only
e rm
xe Mi Gy
sp
g io
Tropical
(Amazonia)
An
(global)
mn
os
pe
rm
Consequences?
In the coniferous forests of the Sierra Nevada: a 4 C increase in temperature is associated with a 0.5 %yr -1 increase in population turnover rate, potentially reducing average tree age by one third.
Forest turnover (% yr )
3
y = 2.76 - 0.00066 x r 2 = 0.49, P < 0.001
-1
Elevation (m)
Stephenson & van Mantgem, Ecol. Lett., 2005
Factor 1 = Drought-sensitive tree-ring collections Factor 2 = High elevation, maritime, high-latitude tree-ring collections ~ 146 chronologies dont load highly on either continental pattern
McKenzie et al. 2001. Can. J. For. Res. 31: 526538. Recent growth of conifer species of western North America: assessing spatial patterns of radial growth trends
These patterns point to three kinds of growth limitation by climate: Water limitation Energy limitation Some combination of water and energy
These patterns primarily represent sites dendroclimatologists would choose. What about the rest of the forests in the West? How do we go from reconstruction-grade sites that tell us about the most sensitive trees to more mechanistic responses that allow inferences for large areas of forests?
GROWTH: Within a species range across biogeographical space, climate impacts depend on elevation
PDO
Peterson and Peterson. 2001. Ecology 82: 3330-3345. Mountain hemlock growth responds to climatic variability at annual and decadal time scales.
GROWTH: Across forest types and species within a mountain range, climate impacts depend on physiography
Nakawatase and Peterson. 2006. Can. J. For. Res. 36: 77-91. Spatial variability in forest growth climate relationships in the Olympic Mountains, Washington.
GROWTH: Within a watershed, for the same species, elevation affects growth-climate relationships
Low elevation vs. Max. Sum. T
Growth-limiting factors are not really elevation, latitude, physiography, or even biotic. These are all surrogates for different scales of climatic (water or energy) limitation, and point to the need for MULTI-SCALE, GRADIENT-BASED studies of climatic limitation of growth
219cm
72 cm
170cm
Highest Elevation
North
Lowest Elevation
South
Mean Climate Data: DAYMET 1981-1997 Climatic Niche Dimensions: Thompson et al. 2001
ONP
NCNP
IPNF
Within each park, the variability in treegrowth is similar across low, middle, and high elevations.
GNP
The magnitude of the correlation between seasonal hydrological variables and tree-growth depends on the position of the plot along a gradient of surplus water in the environment.
A CALL TO ACTION
We do a pretty good job of monitoring weather, snow, and hydrology.
This network of forest gauging stations will have two primary goals:
(1) Change detection (complementary to remote sensing)
Mortality rate
Low
h Hig w Lo
e S it
cti du pro
vity
Such a network is taking shape in CORFOR (the Cordillera Forest Dynamics Network)
http://mri.scnatweb.ch/content/view/88/30/