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Increased Summer Temperatures Reduce the Growth and Regeneration of Larix sibirica in Southern Boreal Forests of Eastern Kazakhstan

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Abstract

The larch forests at the southern limit of the Siberian boreal forest in Central Asia have repeatedly experienced strong recent growth declines attributed to decreasing summer precipitation in the course of climate warming. Here, we present evidence from the southernmost Larix sibirica forests in eastern Kazakhstan that these declines are primarily caused by a decrease in effective moisture due to increasing summer temperatures, despite constant annual, and summer precipitation. Tree-ring chronologies (>800 trees) showed a reduction by 50–80% in mean ring width and an increase in the frequency of missing rings since the 1970s. Climate-response analysis revealed a stronger (negative) effect of summer temperature (in particular of the previous year’s June and July temperature) on radial growth than summer precipitation (positive effect). It is assumed that a rise in the atmospheric vapor pressure deficit, which typically increases with temperature, is negatively affecting tree water status and radial growth, either directly or indirectly through reduced soil moisture. Larch rejuvenation ceased in the 1950s, which is partly explained by increasing topsoil desiccation in a warmer climate and a high drought susceptibility of larch germination, as was demonstrated by a germination experiment with variable soil moisture levels. The lack of regeneration and the reduced annual stem increment suggest that sustainable forest management aiming at timber harvesting is no longer feasible in these southern boreal forests. Progressive climate warming is likely to cause a future northward shift of the southern limit of the boreal forest.

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Acknowledgments

The study was supported by a grant of the Volkswagen Foundation to M. Hauck, Ch. Dulamsuren and Ch. Leuschner for the project ‘Forest regeneration and biodiversity at the forest-steppe border of the Altai and Khangai Mountains under contrasting developments of livestock numbers in Kazakhstan and Mongolia’. F. Zhao received a grant for her work from the European Union in the framework of the Lotus I program in the Erasmus Mundus Action 2, whereas Y. Xue was funded by the China Scholarship Council. We are thankful to the Director of the Zaisan Forest Office, K. U. Akhmetov, for permissions for field work. B. Jadambaa (Ulan Bator) is thanked for his help during field work. B. Boldgiv, N. Batkhuu and P. Battulga (Ulan Bator) kindly supplied us with larch seeds for the germination experiment. L.I. Milyutin (Krasnoyarsk) helped us with literature on seed germination.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Plant Ecology, Albrecht von Haller Institute for Plant Sciences, Georg August University of Göttingen, Untere Karspüle 2, 37073, Göttingen, Germany

    Choimaa Dulamsuren, Tobias Wommelsdorf, Fengjun Zhao, Yaoqin Xue, Christoph Leuschner & Markus Hauck

  2. Department of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Fengjun Zhao

  3. College of Life Sciences, Northwest A & F University, Taicheng Road 3, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Yaoqin Xue

  4. Department of Biology and Ecology, Pavlodar State University named after S. Toraigyrov, Lomova Street 64, 140008, Pavlodar, Kazakhstan

    Bulat Z. Zhumadilov

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  1. Choimaa Dulamsuren
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  2. Tobias Wommelsdorf
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Correspondence to Choimaa Dulamsuren.

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Author Contributions

CD and MH conceived of and designed the study; TW, BZ, CD and MH performed field work; CD, TW, YX and BZ conducted tree-ring measurements and analyzed these data. FZ performed and analyzed the seedbed experiment; CD, MH and CL wrote the manuscript.

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Dulamsuren, C., Wommelsdorf, T., Zhao, F. et al. Increased Summer Temperatures Reduce the Growth and Regeneration of Larix sibirica in Southern Boreal Forests of Eastern Kazakhstan. Ecosystems 16, 1536–1549 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-013-9700-1

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