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Does Soil Organic Layer Thickness Affect Climate–Growth Relationships in the Black Spruce Boreal Ecosystem?

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Abstract

The observed long-term decrease in the regional fire activity of Eastern Canada results in excessive accumulation of organic layer on the forest floor of coniferous forests, which may affect climate–growth relationships in canopy trees. To test this hypothesis, we related tree-ring chronologies of black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P.) to soil organic layer (SOL) depth at the stand scale in the lowland forests of Quebec’s Clay Belt. Late-winter and early-spring temperatures and temperature at the end of the previous year’s growing season were the major monthly level environmental controls of spruce growth. The effect of SOL on climate–growth relationships was moderate and reversed the association between tree growth and summer aridity from a negative to a positive relationship: trees growing on thin organic layers were thus negatively affected by drought, whereas it was the opposite for sites with deep (>20–30 cm) organic layers. This indicates the development of wetter conditions on sites with thicker SOL. Deep SOL were also associated with an increased frequency of negative growth anomalies (pointer years) in tree-ring chronologies. Our results emphasize the presence of nonlinear growth responses to SOL accumulation, suggesting 20–30 cm as a provisional threshold with respect to the effects of SOL on the climate–growth relationship. Given the current climatic conditions characterized by generally low-fire activity and a trend toward accumulation of SOL, the importance of SOL effects in the black spruce ecosystem is expected to increase in the future.

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Acknowledgements

Financial support for this research was provided by Industrial Chair in Sustainable Forest Management and a NSERC strategic grant to YB. I.D. thanks Martin Girardin and Remi St-Amant, Natural Resources Canada, for the help with MDC calculation. We thank two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of MS, Mélanie Desrochers, Université du Québec à Montréal for assistance with digital maps, and Dan McKenney, Canadian Forest Service, for help in obtaining climate data.

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  1. Canada Research Chair in Ecology and Sustainable Forest Management, University of Québec in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, 445 boul. de l’Université, Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, J9X5E4, Canada

    Igor Drobyshev & Yves Bergeron

  2. Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin, Birge Hall, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, Wisconsin, 53706, USA

    Martin Simard

  3. Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, 7485, Trondheim, Norway

    Annika Hofgaard

  4. Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, Swedish Agricultural University (SLU), P.O. Box 49, SE-230 53, Alnarp, Sweden

    Igor Drobyshev

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  1. Igor Drobyshev
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Correspondence to Igor Drobyshev.

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ID took a leading role in writing of the text and statistical analyses. MS and AH supplied tree-ring data. ID, MS, YV, and AH discussed the study results during the preparation of the paper.

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Drobyshev, I., Simard, M., Bergeron, Y. et al. Does Soil Organic Layer Thickness Affect Climate–Growth Relationships in the Black Spruce Boreal Ecosystem?. Ecosystems 13, 556–574 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-010-9340-7

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