Insect infestations have an impact on the quality of climate reconstructions using Larix ring-width chronologies from the Tibetan plateau

Insect outbreaks are proven to harm trees, reducing their biomass accumulation due to the defoliation of leaves during the growing season. Various defoliators are responsible for the formation of extremely narrow tree rings in different tree species. In climate reconstructions based on tree-ring width, such narrow rings are often considered as noise, because their formation is not entirely caused by climatic conditions. Thus, the impact of defoliators should be removed (nullified) for unbiased climate reconstructions. This study mainly describes a statistical approach to disentangle the effects of Larch budmoth(LBM) (Zeiraphera diniana) and climate for an unbiased temperature reconstruction in the Bai-Ma mountain area in Southwest China using Larix potaninii. After applying our new approach, growth-climate relationships improved significantly (p