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Drought-induced increase in water-use efficiency reduces secondary tree growth and tracheid wall thickness in a Mediterranean conifer

Oecologia volume 176, pages 273–283 (2014)Cite this article

Abstract

In order to understand the impact of drought and intrinsic water-use efficiency (iWUE) on tree growth, we evaluated the relative importance of direct and indirect effects of water availability on secondary growth and xylem anatomy of Juniperus thurifera, a Mediterranean anisohydric conifer. Dendrochronological techniques, quantitative xylem anatomy, and 13C/12C isotopic ratio were combined to develop standardized chronologies for iWUE, BAI (basal area increment), and anatomical variables on a 40-year-long annually resolved series for 20 trees. We tested the relationship between iWUE and secondary growth at short-term (annual) and long-term (decadal) temporal scales to evaluate whether gains in iWUE may lead to increases in secondary growth. We obtained a positive long-term correlation between iWUE and BAI, simultaneously with a negative short-term correlation between them. Furthermore, BAI and iWUE were correlated with anatomical traits related to carbon sink or storage (tracheid wall thickness and ray parenchyma amount), but no significant correlation with conductive traits (tracheid lumen) was found. Water availability during the growing season significantly modulated tree growth at the xylem level, where growth rates and wood anatomical traits were affected by June precipitation. Our results are consistent with a drought-induced limitation of tree growth response to rising CO2, despite the trend of rising iWUE being maintained. We also remark the usefulness of exploring this relationship at different temporal scales to fully understand the actual links between iWUE and secondary growth dynamics.

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Acknowledgments

We are indebted to Ayuntamiento de Cabrejas del Pinar (Soria) for all the facilities provided during field work, Juan Carlos Rubio for assistance with stem disk preparation, and especially to Gonzalo Juste, Isabel Lorente, Maika Folch, and Enrique Marcos for the arduous task of microtomy, tracheid measurements, and isotope material preparation. David Brown edited the English. Comments and suggestions from Georg von Arx, David Tissue, and two anonymous reviewers greatly improved the paper. This work was supported by a FPI-EHU grant to A.A., a FPI-MICINN grant to A.I.G.-C. and projects CGL2012-34209 (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity) and VA006A10-2 (Junta de Castilla y León).

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Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Ciencias Agroforestales, EU de Ingenierías Agrarias, Universidad de Valladolid, Los Pajaritos s/n, 42004, Soria, Spain

    José Miguel Olano & Ana I. García-Cervigón

  2. Sustainable Forest Management Research Institute, Universidad de Valladolid-INIA, Valladolid, Spain

    José Miguel Olano & Ana I. García-Cervigón

  3. Área de Ecología, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Ctra. Utrera km. 1, 41002, Seville, Spain

    Juan Carlos Linares

  4. Departamento de Biología Vegetal y Ecología, Facultad de Ciencia y Tecnología, Universidad del País Vasco, Barrio Sarriena s/n, 48940, Leioa, Bizkaia, Spain

    Alberto Arzac

  5. Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra (CSIC), 18100, Armilla, Granada, Spain

    Antonio Delgado

  6. Laboratorio de Dendrocronología, Facultad de Ciencias Forestales, Universidad Austral de Chile, Casilla 567, Valdivia, Chile

    Vicente Rozas

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  1. José Miguel Olano
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  2. Juan Carlos Linares
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  3. Ana I. García-Cervigón
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  4. Alberto Arzac
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  5. Antonio Delgado
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  6. Vicente Rozas
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to José Miguel Olano.

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Communicated by David Tissue.

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Olano, J.M., Linares, J.C., García-Cervigón, A.I. et al. Drought-induced increase in water-use efficiency reduces secondary tree growth and tracheid wall thickness in a Mediterranean conifer. Oecologia 176, 273–283 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-014-2989-4

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Keywords

  • Basal area increment (BAI)
  • Intrinsic water-use efficiency (iWUE)
  • Juniperus thurifera
  • Mediterranean climate
  • Xylem quantitative anatomy