Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Differential drought responses between saplings and adult trees in four co-occurring species of New England

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Trees Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Tree-ring characteristics in four species were examined to address whether co-occurring mature trees of different successional status respond differently to drought, and whether saplings of these species have a greater response to drought than mature trees. We examined saplings and mature trees of paper birch, yellow birch, red maple and sugar maple, which varied in successional status (shade-tolerance) and co-occurred at Harvard Forest, Petersham, Mass., USA. Three drought events in 1964–1966, 1981 and 1995 were identified using climate data. For mature trees, there was no significant interspecific difference in relative changes in ring-width index (RWI) during the 1964–1966 and 1995 drought events. However, the interspecific difference was significant in the 1981 drought event. Response function analysis for mature trees showed that the radial growth of sugar maple was mainly controlled by spring and summer precipitation, red maple by spring and summer precipitation and temperature, yellow birch by winter and summer precipitation, and spring and summer temperature, and paper birch by spring and summer precipitation and spring temperature. Saplings of sugar maple and yellow birch, but not red maple and paper birch, showed significant positive correlations between RWI and annual total precipitation. In the 1995 drought event, saplings and mature trees of red maple and paper birch differed significantly in drought responses, but this was not true in sugar maple and yellow birch. Our results do not support a generally greater response in saplings than in mature trees, nor an early- versus late successional difference in drought responses.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abrams MD (1998) The red maple paradox. BioScience 48:355–364

    Google Scholar 

  • Abrams MD, Mostoller SA (1995) Gas exchange, leaf structure and nitrogen in contrasting successional tree species growing in open and understory sites during a drought. Tree Physiol 15:361–370

    Google Scholar 

  • Abrams MD, Ruffner CM, Morgan TA (1998) Tree-ring responses to drought across species and contrasting sites in the Ridge and Valley of central Pennsylvania. For Sci 44:550–558

    Google Scholar 

  • Bazzaz FA (1979) The physiological ecology of plant succession. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 10:351–371

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bazzaz FA (1987) Experimental studies on the evolution of niche in successional plant populations. In: Gray AJ, Crawley MJ, Edwards PJ (eds) Colonization, succession and stability. Blackwell Scientific, Oxford, pp 245–271

    Google Scholar 

  • Bazzaz FA (1996) Plant in changing environments: linking physiological, population, and community ecology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Bazzaz FA, Bassow SL, Berntson GM, Thomas SC (1996) Elevated CO2 and terrestrial vegetation: implications for and beyond the global carbon budget. In: Walker B, Steffen W (eds) Global change and terrestrial ecosystems. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp 43–76

    Google Scholar 

  • Berntson GM (1994) Modeling root architecture: are there tradeoffs between efficiency and potential of resource capture? New Phytol 127:483–493

    Google Scholar 

  • Bragg WK, Knapp AK, Briggs JM (1993) Comparative water relations of seedling and adult Quercus species during gallery forest expansion in tallgrass prairie. For Ecol Manage 56:29–41

    Google Scholar 

  • Burns RM, Honkala BH (1990) Silvics of North America. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Washington, D.C.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carlton GM, Bazzaz FA (1998) Regeneration of three sympatric birch species on experimental hurricane blowdown microsites. Ecol Monogr 68:99–120

    Google Scholar 

  • Catovsky S, Bazzaz FA (1999) Elevated CO2 influences the responses of two birch species to soil moisture: implications for forest community structure. Global Change Biol 5:507–518

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavender-Bares J, Bazzaz FA (2000) Changes in drought response strategies with ontogeny in Quercus rubra: implications for scaling from seedlings to mature trees. Oecologia 124:8–18

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark JR (1983) Age-related changes in trees. J Arboric 9:201–205

    Google Scholar 

  • Cook ER, Jacoby GC Jr. (1977) Tree ring-drought relationships in Hudson Valley, New York. Science 198:399–401

    Google Scholar 

  • Donovan LA, Ehleringer JR (1991) Ecophysiological differences among juvenile and reproductive plants of several woody species. Oecologia 86:594–597

    Google Scholar 

  • Donovan LA, Ehleringer JR (1992) Contrasting water-use patterns among size and life-history classes of a semiarid shrub. Funct Ecol 6:482–488

    Google Scholar 

  • Donovan LA, Pappert RA (1998) Ecophysiological differences among growth stages of Quercus laevis in a sandhill oak community. J Torrey Bot Soc 125:3–10

    Google Scholar 

  • Ehleringer JR, Field CB (eds) (1993) Scaling physiological processes: leaf to globe. Academic Press, San Diego, Calif.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ellsworth DS, Reich PB (1992) Water relations and gas exchange of Acer saccharum seedlings in contrasting natural light and water regimes. Tree Physiol 10:1–20

    Google Scholar 

  • Foster DR (1992) Land-use history (1730–1990) and vegetation dynamics in central New England, USA. J Ecol 80:753–772

    Google Scholar 

  • Frazer JM, Davis SD (1988) Differential survival of chaparral seedlings during the first summer drought after wildfire. Oecologia 76:215–221

    Google Scholar 

  • Fritts HC (1976) Tree rings and climate. Academic, New York

  • Fritts HC (1996) Quick help for PRECON now called PRECONK Version 5.11. Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz.

  • Fritts HC, Blasing TJ, Hayden BP, Kutzbach JE (1971) Multivariate techniques for specifying tree-growth and climate relationships and for reconstructing anomalies in paleoclimate. J Appl Meteorol 10:845–864

    Google Scholar 

  • Grissini-Mayer H, Holmes RL, Fritts HC (1993) International tree-ring data bank program library user’s manual. Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona

  • Harper JL (1977) Population biology of plants. Academic Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Holmes RL (1983) Computer-assisted quality control in tree-ring dating and measurement. Tree-Ring Bull 43:69–75

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobi JC, Tainter FH (1998) Dendroclimatic examination of white oak along an environmental gradient in the Piedmont of South Carolina. Castanea 53:252–262

    Google Scholar 

  • Knapp AK, Fahnestock JT (1990) Influence of plant size on the carbon and water relations of Cucurbita foetididdima HBK. Funct Ecol 4:789–797

    Google Scholar 

  • Kolb TE, Fredericksen TS, Steiner KC, Skelly JM (1998) Issues in scaling tree size and age responses to ozone: a review. Environ Pollut 98:195–208

    Google Scholar 

  • Körner C (2000) Biosphere responses to CO2 enrichment. Ecol Appl 10:1590–1619

    Google Scholar 

  • Kramer PJ (1983) Plant and soil water relationship. Academic, New York

  • Krebs CJ (2001) Ecology, 5th edn. Benjamin Cummings, San Francisco

    Google Scholar 

  • Lange OL, Nobel PS, Osmond CB, Ziegler H (eds) (1982) Physiological plant ecology. II: Water relations and carbon assimilation. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York

    Google Scholar 

  • May RM (1974) On the theory of niche overlap. Theor Popul Biol 5:297–332

    Google Scholar 

  • Norby RJ, Wullschleger SD, Gunderson CA, Johnson DW, Ceulemans R (1999) Tree responses to rising CO2 in field experiments: implications for the future forest. Plant Cell Environ 22:683–714

    Google Scholar 

  • Ogle K, Whitham TG, Cobb NS (2000) Tree-ring variation in pinyon predicts likelihood of death following severe drought. Ecology 81:3237–3243

    Google Scholar 

  • Palmer WC (1965) Meteorological drought. Weather Bureau, Res. Pap. No. 45, Washington, D.C., USA

    Google Scholar 

  • Parrish JAD, Bazzaz FA (1985) Nutrient content of Abutilon theophrasti seeds and the competitive ability of the resulting plants. Oecologia 65:247–251

    Google Scholar 

  • Sandquist DR, Schuster WSF, Donovan LA, Phillips SL, Ehleringer JR (1993) Differences in carbon isotope discrimination between seedlings and adults of southwestern desert perennial plants. Southwestern Nat 38:212–217

    Google Scholar 

  • SAS (1999) SAS/STAT User’s guide, Version 8.01 (On-line Docs). SAS Institute, Cary, N.C.

  • Sipe TW, Bazzaz FA (1994) Gap partitioning among maples (Acer) in central New England: shoot architecture and photosynthesis. Ecology 75:2318–2332

    Google Scholar 

  • Sipe TW, Bazzaz FA (1995) Gap partitioning among maples (Acer) in central New England: survival and growth. Ecology 76:1587–1602

    Google Scholar 

  • Spurr SH (1956) Forest associations in the Harvard Forest. Ecol Monogr 26:245–262

    Google Scholar 

  • Stout BB (1952) Species distribution and soils in the Harvard Forest. Harvard Forest Bulletin No. 24, Harvard Forest, Petersham, Mass., USA

  • Szeicz JM (1997) Growth trends and climatic sensitivity of trees in the North Patagonian rain forest of Chile. Can J For Res 27:1003–1014

    Google Scholar 

  • Szeicz JM, MacDonald GM (1995) Dendroclimatic reconstruction of summer temperatures in Northwestern Canada since A.D. 1638 based on age-dependent modeling. Quat Res 44:257–266

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas SC, Ickes K (1995) Ontogenetic changes in leaf size in Malaysian rain forest trees. Biotropica 27:427–434

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas SC, Winner WE (2002) Photosynthetic differences between saplings and adult trees: an integration of field results by meta-analysis. Tree Physiol 22:117–127

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tschaplinski TJ, Stewart DB, Hanson PJ, Norby RJ (1995) Interactions between drought and elevated CO2 on growth and gas exchange of seedlings of three deciduous tree species. New Phytol 129:63–71

    Google Scholar 

  • Wayne PM, Bazzaz FA (1993) Birch seedling responses to daily time courses of light in experimental forest gaps and shadehouses. Ecology 74:1500–1515

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolfe DW, Gifford RM, Hilbert D, Luo Y (1998) Integration of photosynthetic acclimation to CO2 at the whole-plant level. Global Change Biol 4:879–893

    Google Scholar 

  • Yamaguchi DK (1991) A simple method for cross-dating increment cores from living trees. Can J For Res 21:414–416

    Google Scholar 

  • Yordanov I, Velikova V, Tsonev T (2000) Plant responses to drought, acclimation, and tress tolerance. Photosynthetica 38:171–186

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank D. Orwig, and S. Catovsky for stimulating discussions on the subject and reviewing the research proposal, P. Wayne and T. Sipe for offering ideas that were incorporated into this research, T. Wang for conducting response function analysis, and D. Orwig, J. Cavender-Bares, S. Catovsky, D. Flynn and two anonymous reviewers for comments on the previous version of this manuscript. This research was supported by the China State Key Basic Research and Development Plan (Project 2002CB412502) to J.S.H. and Harvard Forest LTER to F.A.B.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology, College of Environmental Sciences, Peking University, 5 Yiheyuan Rd., Beijing, 100871, China

    Jin-Sheng He

  2. Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA

    Jin-Sheng He & F. A. Bazzaz

  3. Laboratory of Quantitative Vegetation Ecology, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 20 Nanxincun, Xiangshan, Beijing, 100093, China

    Qi-Bin Zhang

Authors
  1. Jin-Sheng He
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Qi-Bin Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. F. A. Bazzaz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jin-Sheng He.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

He, JS., Zhang, QB. & Bazzaz, F.A. Differential drought responses between saplings and adult trees in four co-occurring species of New England. Trees 19, 442–450 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-004-0403-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-004-0403-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation