TY - JOUR
T1 - Site-contingent responses to drought of core and relict Tetraclinis articulata populations from Morocco and Spain
AU - Zemrani, Merouane
AU - Camarero, J. Julio
AU - Valeriano, Cristina
AU - Rubio-Cuadrado, Alvaro
AU - Fulé, Peter Z.
AU - Díaz-Delgado, Ricardo
AU - Taïqui, Lahcen
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank the Moroccan Department of Water and Forests for facilitating the sampling work carried out in Morocco. This research was funded by Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation ( TED2021–129770B-C21 project). CV was supported by a PhD grant ( PRE2019-089800 ) associated to project RTI2018–096884-B-C31 from Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. ARC is supported by a "Margarita Salas" post-doctoral fellowship ( RCMS-22-G1T6IW-17-NLHJ80 ) from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spain). PZF was supported by a Fulbright Scholar grant through the Moroccan-American Commission for Educational & Cultural Exchange (MACECE) . The authors thank ICTS-RBD (Infraestructura Científica y Técnica Singular-Reserva Biológica de Doñana) funded by ICTS-MICIN program and to the managers of Doñana Protected Area for its help in accessing and sampling the Doñana relict population.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors
PY - 2023/8
Y1 - 2023/8
N2 - The growth responses to climate variability are still unknown in locally threatened conifers from dry regions, but this information is necessary for improving the conservation of relict populations under increasing aridification. We characterized the radial growth patterns and responses to climate of Tetraclinis articulata, a Cupressaceae tree endemic to the western Mediterranean Basin, in a relict population located in southwestern Spain (Doñana) and two populations from the northern Morocco where the species core habitat is found (Tétouan, Ifarten). We assessed climate-growth relationships by using tree-ring width, climate data, drought and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) indices. Climate-growth analyses were refined using the climwin R package to select the most informative statistical models. The main climatic constraints of growth were inferred by using the process-based Vaganov-Shashkin (VS) model explicitly considering non-linear climate-growth relationships. Tetraclinis articulata growth was favored by wet conditions from the prior autumn to the spring of the growth year. In Doñana, warmer May conditions led to growth decline but this negative effect could be reversed by wet-warm conditions in the prior late autumn. Growth in the two Moroccan sites was constrained by 6- to 18-month long droughts peaking in summer, which account for cumulative water deficit since the previous autumn. Winter and early spring precipitation were the main climate drivers of growth in the Moroccan T. articulata populations, and their year-to-year variability was linked to the NAO. The VS model simulations showed that T. articulata growth is enhanced by wet soil conditions in late winter and early spring, probably recharging shallow soil water pools. The VS model also confirmed that warmer spring-summer conditions could amplify drought stress and threaten the long-term persistence of the relict Doñana population.
AB - The growth responses to climate variability are still unknown in locally threatened conifers from dry regions, but this information is necessary for improving the conservation of relict populations under increasing aridification. We characterized the radial growth patterns and responses to climate of Tetraclinis articulata, a Cupressaceae tree endemic to the western Mediterranean Basin, in a relict population located in southwestern Spain (Doñana) and two populations from the northern Morocco where the species core habitat is found (Tétouan, Ifarten). We assessed climate-growth relationships by using tree-ring width, climate data, drought and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) indices. Climate-growth analyses were refined using the climwin R package to select the most informative statistical models. The main climatic constraints of growth were inferred by using the process-based Vaganov-Shashkin (VS) model explicitly considering non-linear climate-growth relationships. Tetraclinis articulata growth was favored by wet conditions from the prior autumn to the spring of the growth year. In Doñana, warmer May conditions led to growth decline but this negative effect could be reversed by wet-warm conditions in the prior late autumn. Growth in the two Moroccan sites was constrained by 6- to 18-month long droughts peaking in summer, which account for cumulative water deficit since the previous autumn. Winter and early spring precipitation were the main climate drivers of growth in the Moroccan T. articulata populations, and their year-to-year variability was linked to the NAO. The VS model simulations showed that T. articulata growth is enhanced by wet soil conditions in late winter and early spring, probably recharging shallow soil water pools. The VS model also confirmed that warmer spring-summer conditions could amplify drought stress and threaten the long-term persistence of the relict Doñana population.
KW - Climwin
KW - North Atlantic Oscillation
KW - Vaganov-Shashkin model
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U2 - 10.1016/j.dendro.2023.126103
DO - 10.1016/j.dendro.2023.126103
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85161314820
SN - 1125-7865
VL - 80
JO - Dendrochronologia
JF - Dendrochronologia
M1 - 126103
ER -