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Synergistic effects of past historical logging and drought on the decline of Pyrenean silver fir forests |
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| Authors: | Jesús Julio Camarero Christof BiglerJuan Carlos Linares Eustaquio Gil-Pelegrín |
| Institution: | a ARAID, Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (CSIC), Avda. Montañana 1005, 50192 Zaragoza, Spain b Forest Ecology, Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, Department of Environmental Sciences, ETH Zurich, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland c Departamento de Sistemas Físicos, Químicos y Naturales, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Ctra. Utrera km. 1, 41002 Sevilla, Spain d Unidad de Recursos Forestales, Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentaria de Aragón, Apdo. 727, 50080 Zaragoza, Spain |
| Abstract: | The causal factors and effects of forest declines are not well understood in temperate conifer forests. Most studies have focused on climatic and environmental stressors and have obviated the potential role of historical forest management as a predisposing factor of decline. Here, we assess if the recent silver fir (Abies alba) decline observed in the Spanish Pyrenees was predisposed by historical logging and incited by warming-induced drought stress. We analysed a dataset of environmental, structural, and historical variables at the tree and stand level including 32 sites with contrasting degrees of defoliation distributed over 5600 km2. We followed a dendroecological approach to reconstruct historical logging and to infer the effects of warming-induced drought stress on growth. The silver fir decline was more severe and widespread in western low-elevation mixed forests dominated by trees of small size and slow growth. These sites were subject to higher water deficits than eastern sites, where late-summer rainfall as the key climatic variable controlling silver fir growth was higher. Declining sites showed more frequent growth releases induced by historical logging than non-declining sites. Historical logging and warming-induced drought acted as long-term predisposing and short-term inciting factors of silver fir decline in the Pyrenees, respectively. We suggest that biomass increases caused by past intense logging affected the vulnerability of silver fir against late-summer water deficit. Future research in declining temperate conifer forests should consider the interacting role of predisposing historical management and inducing climatic stressors such as droughts. |
| Keywords: | Abies alba Dendroecology Drought stress Pyrenees Radial growth Releases |
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