Search

Abstract: The boreal biome represents approximately one third of the world's forested area and plays an important role in global biogeochemical and energy cycles. Numerous studies in boreal Alaska have concluded that growth of black and white spruce is declining as a result of temperature‐induced drought stress. The combined evidence of declining spruce growth and changes in the fire regime that favor establishment of deciduous tree species has led some investigators to suggest the region may be transitioning from dominance by spruce to dominance by deciduous forests and/or grasslands. Although spruce growth trends have been extensively investigated, few studies have evaluated long‐term radial growth trends of the dominant deciduous species (Alaska paper birch and trembling aspen) and their sensitivity to moisture availability. We used a large and spatially extensive sample of tree cores from interior Alaska to compare long‐term growth trends among contrasting tree species (white and black spruce vs. birch and aspen). All species showed a growth peak in the mid‐1940s, although growth following the peak varied strongly across species. Following an initial decline from the peak, growth of white spruce showed little evidence of a trend, while black spruce and birch growth showed slight growth declines from ~1970 to present. Aspen growth was much more variable than the other species and showed a steep decline from ~1970 to present. Growth of birch, black and white spruce was sensitive to moisture availability throughout most of the tree‐ring chronologies, as evidenced by negative correlations with air temperature and positive correlations with precipitation. However, a positive correlation between previous July precipitation and aspen growth disappeared in recent decades, corresponding with a rise in the population of the aspen leaf miner (Phyllocnistis populiella), an herbivorous moth, which may have driven growth to a level not seen since the early 20th century. Our results provide important historical context for recent growth and raise questions regarding competitive interactions among the dominant tree species and exchanges of carbon and energy in the warming climate of interior Alaska. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long-term experiments provide a way to test presumed causes of successional or environmentally driven vegetation changes. Early-successional nitrogen (N)-fixing plants are widely thought to facilitate productivity and vegetation development on N-poor sites, thus accounting for observed vegetation patterns later in succession. We tested this facilitative impact on vegetation development in a 23-yr field experiment on an Interior Alaska ( USA) floodplain. On three replicate early-successional silt bars, we planted late-successional white spruce ( Picea glauca) seedlings in the presence and absence of planted seedlings of an early-successional N-fixing shrub, thinleaf alder ( Alnus incana). Alder initially facilitated survivorship and growth of white spruce. Within six years, however, after canopy closure, alder negatively affected spruce survivorship and growth. Our three replicate sites followed different successional trajectories. One site was eliminated by erosion and supported no vegetation development during our study. The other two sites, which differed in site moisture, diverged in vegetation composition. Structural equation modeling ( SEM) suggested that, in the drier of these two sites, alder inhibited spruce growth directly (presumably by competition) and indirectly through effects mediated by competition with other woody species. However, at the wetter site, alder had both positive and negative effects on spruce growth, with negative effects predominating. Snowshoe hares ( Lepus americanus) in alder thickets further reduced height growth of spruce in the wetter site. We conclude that net effects of alder on white spruce, the late-successional dominant, were primarily inhibitory and indirect, with the mechanisms depending on initial site moisture. Our results highlight the importance of long-term research showing that small differences among initial replicate sites can cause divergence in successional trajectories, consistent with individualistic distributions of species and communities along environmental gradients. This divergence was detectable only decades later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trees growing near the Arctic treeline have long been used to reconstruct past climates. However, recent studies have shown deterioration of historically strong positive correlations between air temperature and tree growth (known as "divergence"). Divergence has important implications for confidence in paleoclimate reconstructions and ecosystem–atmosphere carbon exchange. Studies in the Brooks Range of northern Alaska showed that white spruce in the west increased growth in response to late 20th century warming, whereas those in the east failed to show a growth increase. In an earlier study across four watersheds in the Brooks Range, we tested and rejected the hypothesis that divergence in the easternmost watershed reflects moisture limitation of growth. Here, using 16 sites distributed across the same four watersheds, we tested an alternative hypothesis, that greater nutrient limitation in the east may have impeded positive growth responses to warming. Climate comparison across the four Brooks Range study watersheds revealed that, although the easternmost watershed generally had a drier growing‐season climate, the most consistent difference was that winter air temperature and both winter and summer soil temperatures were much colder in the central and eastern watersheds. Soil nutrient availability, foliar nutrient concentrations, and tree growth were all generally lower in the central and eastern than in the western watersheds. Foliar phosphorus concentration was the best predictor of spatial variation in branch extension growth—a finding that is somewhat inconsistent with the theory that forest productivity on young, glacially derived soils should be strongly nitrogen limited. Experimental fertilization yielded the greatest growth increase in the eastern, an intermediate response in the central, and the smallest growth increase in the western watershed, generally mirroring trends in soil temperature, soil nutrient availability, foliar nutrient concentrations, and growth of control trees. Our results confirm that growth in the easternmost watershed is more nutrient limited and suggest that phosphorus limitation may be at least as important as nitrogen limitation of growth. We hypothesize that cold soil effects on tree access to nutrients might explain divergence in the eastern Brooks Range and elsewhere near the Arctic treeline, particularly in areas with cold winters and widespread permafrost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As they return to spawn and die in their natal streams, anadromous, semelparous fishes such as Pacific salmon import marine-derived nutrients to otherwise nutrient-poor freshwater and riparian ecosystems. Diverse organisms exploit this resource, and previous studies have indicated that riparian tree growth may be enhanced by such marine-derived nutrients. However, these studies were largely inferential and did not account for all factors affecting tree growth. As an experimental test of the contribution of carcasses to tree growth, for 20 yr, we systematically deposited all sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) carcasses (217,055 individual salmon) in the riparian zone on one bank of a 2-km-long stream in southwestern Alaska, reducing carcass accumulation on one bank and enhancing it on the other. After accounting for partial consumption and movement of carcasses by brown bears (Ursus arctos) and variation in salmon abundance and body size, we estimated that 267,620 kg of salmon were deposited on the enhanced bank and 45,200 kg on the depleted bank over the 20 yr, for a 5.9-fold difference in total mass. In 2016, we sampled needles of 84 white spruce trees (Picea glauca) the dominant riparian tree species, for foliar nitrogen (N) content and stable isotope ratios (δ 15 N), and took core samples for annual growth increments. Stable isotope analysis indicated that marine-derived N was incorporated into the new growth of the trees on the enhanced bank. Analysis of tree cores indicated that in the two decades prior to our enhancement experiment, trees on the south-facing (subsequently the depleted) bank grew faster than those on the north-facing (later enhanced) bank. This difference was reduced significantly during the two decades of fertilization, indicating an effect of the carcass transfer experiment against the background of other factors affecting tree growth., (© 2018 by the Ecological Society of America.)