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A comparison of the climate response of longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) trees among standardized measures of earlywood, latewood, adjusted latewood, and totalwood radial growth

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Abstract

Key message

Longleaf pine radial growth is primarily driven by late summer moisture availability, latewood and adjusted latewood are more sensitive to climate than either earlywood or totalwood, and there is a high level of agreement spatially in growth/climate responses.

Abstract

Our objective was to examine broadly the climate–growth responses of longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) on the Coastal Plain province of North and South Carolina to temperature, precipitation, and drought severity. We compared the responses between standardized earlywood, latewood, adjusted latewood, and totalwood radial tree growth. We sampled mature longleaf pine growing in open-canopy savanna environments and developed six tree-ring chronologies using standard dendroecological techniques. We used a combination of Pearson correlation, moving interval correlation, and Fisher r–z tests to determine which monthly and seasonal variables were most closely related to radial growth, the temporal stability of the dominant growth/climate relationship, and whether earlywood and latewood growth provide significantly different climate responses. Our results show that the strongest relationships with climate are with adjusted latewood growth and that rainfall in the later parts of the growing season (i.e., July–September) is the primary control of radial growth. Spatially, we found that growth/climate responses were similar throughout the Coastal Plain region encompassing the six study sites. Temporally, we found that July–September precipitation produced significant (p < 0.05) relationships with radial growth for extended annual intervals, but there were shorter periods when this relationship was non-significant. In general, growth/climate relationships were stronger for latewood compared to earlywood, and these responses were significantly (p < 0.05) different at about half of our study sites. Our findings are congruent with prior research in this region showing that short-duration precipitation events are a critical component for radial growth. Further, these results emphasize the importance of latewood growth—particularly adjusted latewood growth—in capturing interannual climate/growth responses.

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Availability of data and material

Tree-ring chronologies are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Evan Montpellier, Jeffy Summers, April Kaiser, Andrew Matej, Briana Hibner and Julia Adams for field and/or laboratory assistance. We thank Andrew Walker of the United States Forest Service for assistance in locating and accessing study sites. We thank Tatiana McGee for cartographic work. Funding for the project was provided by the National Science Foundation (USA), Geographical Sciences Program (GSS-1660432).

Funding

The project was funded by National Science Foundation (USA) grant GSS-1660432.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography and Planning, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC, 28607, USA

    Peter T. Soulé

  2. Department of Geography, Environment, and Sustainability, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC, 27412, USA

    Paul A. Knapp & Tyler J. Mitchell

  3. Department of Geography, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA

    Justin T. Maxwell

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  1. Peter T. Soulé
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  2. Paul A. Knapp
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  4. Tyler J. Mitchell
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Contributions

PTS, PAK, and JTM contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection and material preparation were performed by PTS, PAK, JTM, and TJM. Data analyses were performed by PTS, PAK, and JTM. TJM created the graphics. The first draft of the manuscript was written by PTS and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Peter T. Soulé.

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Communicated by S. Vospernik .

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Soulé, P.T., Knapp, P.A., Maxwell, J.T. et al. A comparison of the climate response of longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) trees among standardized measures of earlywood, latewood, adjusted latewood, and totalwood radial growth. Trees 35, 1065–1074 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-021-02093-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-021-02093-z

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