1. Does Central Asian forest growth benefit from a warming-wetting climate? Insights from tree-ring records
- Author
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Ting Wang, Anming Bao, Wenqiang Xu, Guoxiong Zheng, Weibing Du, Tao Yu, Xiaoran Huang, Ziqian Gao, Jiayu Bao, Markus Stoffel, Philippe De Maeyer, and Alain De Wulf
- Subjects
dendroecology ,forest NPP ,sensitivity analysis ,climate warming ,tree ring ,Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering ,TD1-1066 ,Environmental sciences ,GE1-350 ,Science ,Physics ,QC1-999 - Abstract
Climate warming has pronounced impacts on high-elevation regions, including arid Central Asia, and has multiple impacts on the environment. Forests in these mountainous areas provide essential services by regulating regional climate, sequestering carbon, and supporting soil and water conservation. However, trends in forest productivity and their response to climate change remain unclear. To address this knowledge gap, we collected tree cores from five sample plots in the western Tianshan region. We used tree-ring widths to reconstruct net primary productivity (NPP) and investigated the sensitivity of forest NPP to climate change by analysing weather station data and employing LASSO regression to identify climatic factors influencing forest growth. Our results demonstrate that the reconstructed forest NPP effectively captured significant carbon shifts and revealed a non-significant increase in forest productivity associated with climate warming and higher precipitation between 1970 and 2020 at low and middle elevations in the Tianshan mountains. Humidity is the primary limiting factor affecting forest growth in this region. Conversely, the relationship between temperature and forest growth is not consistent as precipitation increases. Our findings suggest that continued warming will exacerbate water stress in forests.
- Published
- 2024
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