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Weather factors controlling growth of Oriental beech are on the turn over the growing season

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Abstract

A better understanding of the ecophysiological basis of wood formation by monitoring radial growth over the whole vegetation period may help to explain possible discrepancies between long-term average climate–growth relationships and short-term climatic impacts on tree growth. To understand how growth–climate associations of Oriental beech vary throughout a vegetation period, we studied seasonal growth patterns of high-elevation beech trees growing in the north of Iran by collecting wood anatomical micro-cores in 10 to bi-weekly intervals and measuring stem increment with high-resolution electronic dendrometers. Wood formation was for two consecutive years with contrasting inter-annual climate conditions (2011 and 2012). We divided the growing period into three equal time phases and related daily climate variability to the cambial growth in each phase. The pattern of climate–growth relationships varies over a complete growing season and between years: in both study years, trees responded homogenously at the beginning and at the end of the growing season, but showed opposing influence of relative humidity during spring and early summer (June and July). Temperature as the main driver of xylogenesis had a stimulating effect on growth at the beginning of the growing season, but had negative effects on radial increment during late June and July mainly due to the excess of ambient temperatures over an optimum threshold. Higher temperature in late June and July 2011 compared with those of 2012 led to a significantly narrower tree ring in 2011, despite the similar sums/means of annual climate parameters in these two years. Since regional climate change scenarios expect higher temperature and reduced moisture conditions in future, radial growth of beech in the north of Iran may be adversely affected.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Wood and Paper Science and Technology, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran

    Reza Oladi & Kambiz Pourtahmasi

  2. Institute of Geography, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany

    Elham Elzami & Achim Bräuning

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  1. Reza Oladi
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  2. Elham Elzami
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  3. Kambiz Pourtahmasi
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  4. Achim Bräuning
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Correspondence to Reza Oladi.

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Oladi, R., Elzami, E., Pourtahmasi, K. et al. Weather factors controlling growth of Oriental beech are on the turn over the growing season. Eur J Forest Res 136, 345–356 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-017-1036-5

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