Diverging growth and resilience of Pinus tabulaeformis and Pinus massoniana to droughts in north-south transition zone, central China

Climate transition zone is a sensitive area of climate change and ecological transition where forests are vulnerable to climate extremes. Extreme droughts are increasing in frequency and magnitude under climate change, resulting in structure and function changes of forest ecosystems. Here, to analyze climate-growth re-lationships and quantify tree resilience to extreme droughts, we developed six tree-ring-width chronologies from P. tabulaeformis and P. massoniana sampling sites in Mt. Jigong region, Central China. The results indicated that all chronologies from the two species had good consistency, precipitation in current April and mean temperature in current August or mean minimum temperature from current August to October were the main limiting factors of the two tree species growth, but the responses of P. massoniana ring-width to climatic factors was more complex than that of P. tabulaeformis. The results also showed that tree growth of 1999-2005 was the lowest growing period during 1979-2018, and P. massoniana grew better than P. tabulaeformis before 2005 and vice versa after 2005. Comparing low growth years of trees, we identified to study tree growth resilience. The cal-culations from 1988, 1999-2005 and 2011 drought years indicated that P. tabulaeformis had more increased resilience to extreme droughts than that of P. massoniana, and the two species had stronger ecological recovery and resilience under global warming and non-extreme drought conditions in the recent 40 years. These results have implications for predicting tree resilience and identifying tree species in heterogeneous forest landscapes vulnerable to future climate change in climatic transition zone.

Automated summary

Climate transition zone is a sensitive area where forests are vulnerable to climate extremes. Extreme droughts, caused by climate change, have led to changes in forest ecosystems. In this study, tree-ring-width chronologies were developed to analyze the relationship between climate and tree growth. The results showed that precipitation in April and temperature in August were key factors affecting tree growth. The study also found that tree growth was lower during the period of 1999-2005, with different growth patterns between two tree species. Furthermore, the study revealed that P. tabulaeformis had greater resilience to extreme droughts compared to P. massoniana. These findings have implications for predicting tree resilience and identifying tree species in forest landscapes vulnerable to future climate change.