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Background mortality drivers of European tree species: climate change matters.

ABSTRACT: 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.

SUBMITTER: Taccoen A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6501684 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Background mortality drivers of European tree species: climate change matters.

Taccoen Adrien A Piedallu Christian C Seynave Ingrid I Perez Vincent V Gégout-Petit Anne A Nageleisen Louis-Michel LM Bontemps Jean-Daniel JD Gégout Jean-Claude JC

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20190401 1900

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 ...[more]

PMID: 30966984

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Project description:The natural distribution, habitat, growth and evolutionary history of tree species are strongly dependent on ecological and genetic processes in ecosystems subject to fluctuating climatic conditions, but there have been few experimental comparisons of sensitivity between species. We compared the responses of two broadleaved tree species (Fagus sylvatica and Quercus petraea) and two conifer tree species (Pinus sylvestris and Picea abies) to climatic transfers by fitting models containing the same climatic variables. We used published data from European provenance test networks to model the responses of individual populations nested within species. A mixed model approach was applied to develop a response function for tree height over climatic transfer distance, taking into account the climatic conditions at both the seed source and the test location. The two broadleaved species had flat climatic response curves, indicating high levels of plasticity in populations, facilitating adaptation to a broader range of environments, and conferring a high potential for resilience in the face of climatic change. By contrast, the two conifer species had response curves with more pronounced slopes, indicating a lower resilience to climate change. This finding may reflect stronger genetic clines in P. sylvestris and P. abies, which constrain their climate responses to narrower climatic ranges. The response functions had maxima that deviated from the expected maximum productivity in the climate of provenance towards cooler/moister climate conditions, which we interpreted as an adaptation lag. Unilateral, linear regression analyses following transfer to warmer and drier sites confirmed a decline in productivity, predictive of the likely impact of ongoing climate change on forest populations. The responses to mimicked climate change evaluated here are of considerable interest for forestry and ecology, supporting projections of expected performance based on "real-time" field data.

Dataset Information

Background mortality drivers of European tree species: climate change matters.

Publications

Background mortality drivers of European tree species: climate change matters.

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