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Spring water deficit and soil conditions matter more than seed origin and summer drought for the establishment of temperate conifers

  • Global change ecology – original research
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Abstract

In anticipation of more severe summer droughts, forestry in temperate Europe is searching for drought-resistant ecotypes of native tree species that might maintain ecosystem services in the future. We investigated how spring precipitation and soil conditions interact with summer drought and affect the establishment of conifer seedlings from different climatic origin. Emergence, establishment and subsequent performance of seedlings originating from autochthonous, Central Alpine, continental Eastern European, and Mediterranean Pinus sylvestris and Picea abies populations were studied in the dry Alpine Rhine valley, Switzerland, at three sites with differing soil water holding capacities and in 3 years with contrasting weather conditions. In addition to this natural inter-annual variation, precipitation was manipulated within sites with throughfall reduction roofs. Seedling establishment and growth were principally affected by the spring weather in the year of emergence. In years with average to positive spring water balance, seedlings grown at the site with the highest water holding capacity had 2–5 times more aboveground biomass than seedlings grown at sites with less favourable soils. Effects of seed origin were marginal and only detectable at the drier sites: contrary to our expectations, seedlings from the Central Alpine Rhone valley, where the climatic spring water deficit is large, outperformed those from the Mediterranean. Consequently, plantation of non-native populations from dryer origin will mitigate the effects of increased summer drought at driest sites only, while the inter-annual variability of spring precipitation will continue to enable temperate conifers to regenerate on a wide range of forest soils independent of seed origin.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to E. Schnider and A. Walter for their invaluable help in setting up and running the experiment. We also acknowledge the field and laboratory work of C. Bachofen, H. Bachofen, C. Baumann, H. Ding, R. Köchli, K. Kramer, S. Kreuzer, Z. Michalova, J. Müller, T. Reich, S. Steinböck, D. Trummer, and E. Wilson. Seed collection was organised and assisted by S. Berdos, C. Calderón Guerrero, G. Golesch, B. Kinigadner, I. Latchev, A. Tashev und N. Tashev. Climate data were provided by MeteoSwiss, the Swiss Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology.

Author contribution statement

TW and BM conceived and designed the experiment. BM, TW, MM, UW, and LW conducted the fieldwork. BM analysed the data, LW collaborated in soil analysis. BM wrote the manuscript with editorial advice from other authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland

    Barbara Moser, Lorenz Walthert, Marek Metslaid, Ulrich Wasem & Thomas Wohlgemuth

  2. Institute of Forestry and Rural Engineering, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia

    Marek Metslaid

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  1. Barbara Moser
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  2. Lorenz Walthert
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  3. Marek Metslaid
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  4. Ulrich Wasem
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  5. Thomas Wohlgemuth
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Correspondence to Barbara Moser.

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Funding

The project was funded by the BAFU/WSL initiative “Wald und Klimawandel” and the Amt für Wald und Naturgefahren des Kantons Graubünden. MM is supported by grant IUT21-4 of the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Communicated by Russell K. Monson.

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Moser, B., Walthert, L., Metslaid, M. et al. Spring water deficit and soil conditions matter more than seed origin and summer drought for the establishment of temperate conifers. Oecologia 183, 519–530 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-016-3766-3

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