Climate‐driven speedup of alpine treeline forest growth in the Tianshan Mountains, Northwestern China. (11th September 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Qi, Zhaohuan; Liu, Hongyan; Wu, Xiuchen; Hao, Qian
• Is Part Of: Global change biology. Volume 21:Number 2(2015:Feb.)
• Page Start: 816
• Page End: 826
• Publication Date: 2014-09-11
• Subjects: Climatic changes -- Environmental aspects -- Periodicals; Troposphere -- Environmental aspects -- Periodicals; Biodiversity conservation -- Periodicals; Eutrophication -- Periodicals; 551.5
• DOI: 10.1111/gcb.12703
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1354-1013

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" id="gcb12703-abs-0001"> <title>Abstract</title> <p>Forest growth is sensitive to interannual climatic change in the alpine treeline ecotone (ATE). Whether the alpine treeline ecotone shares a similar pattern of forest growth with lower elevational closed forest belt (CFB) under changing climate remains unclear. Here, we reported an unprecedented acceleration of <italic>Picea schrenkiana</italic> forest growth since 1960s in the ATE of Tianshan Mountains, northwestern China by a stand‐total sampling along six altitudinal transects with three plots in each transect: one from the ATE between the treeline and the forest line, and the other two from the CFB. All the sampled <italic>P</italic>. <italic>schrenkiana</italic> forest patches show a higher growth speed after 1960 and, comparatively, forest growth in the CFB has sped up much slower than that in the ATE. The speedup of forest growth at the ATE is mainly accounted for by climate factors, with increasing temperature suggested to be the primary driver. Stronger water deficit as well as more competition within the CFB might have restricted forest growth there more than that within the ATE, implying biotic factors were also significant for the accelerated forest growth in the ATE, which should be excluded from simulations and predictions of warming‐induced treeline dynamics.</p> </abstract>