Recent changes in treeline forest distribution and structure in interior Alaska

Although the forest-tundra boundary is likely to be sensitive to future climate warming, the degree to which treeline response may lag climate change and the extent to which sensitivity to climate may vary among sites remain largely unknown. We used tree-ring analysis to reconstruct white spruce (Picea glauca) density from 1800 to present at and beyond the current forest limit at seven altitudinal treeline sites in two regions of interior Alaska. Treeline advance was ubiquitous: cone-bearing spruce are present beyond the current forest limit at all but one site, and tree density has increased at and beyond the forest limit in recent decades at all sites. Increases in stand density were positively correlated with summer temperature at most, but not all, sites. The timing of inferred advances in treeline differed significantly between regions, beginning in the mid- to late 1800s in the White Mountains and in the mid-1900s in the Alaska Range. These differences in the timing of treeline advance may be caused by differences in the rate of forest response to climate or by differences in regional climate history, which remains poorly known. Despite the variation in timing of an advance of treeline, the similarities among sites in the pattern (if not the timing) of change at treeline suggest that recent shifts in the location of the forest-tundra border are a widespread response to recent warming in Alaska.