Douglas-fir climate sensitivity at two contrasting sites along the southern limit of the European planting range
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Douglas‑fir climate sensitivity at two contrasting sites along the southern limit of the European planting range Cristiano Castaldi1 · Maurizio Marchi1 · Giorgio Vacchiano2 · Piermaria Corona1
Received: 21 March 2019 / Accepted: 10 June 2019 © The Author(s) 2019
Abstract Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco) is an important exotic tree species that was planted across a large part of Europe during the last century. In both experimental trials and conventional forest plantations, the trees grow at a high rate and produce high-quality timber. The present study investigated climate-growth relationships of Douglas-fir at two Italian sites that contrast in climate: a Mediterranean area in southern Italy (Mercurella site) and a cooler, moister site in the northern Apennines without summer aridity (Acquerino). The relationship between tree-ring chronologies and monthly climatic variables was evaluated by a moving average and correlation analysis. Results showed that the minimum temperature in February and in March play a key role for Douglas-fir at both sites, with a positive effect on growth. At the northern site, it is also highly sensitive to late summer temperatures (negative correlation) and spring–summer precipitation (positive correlation). Growth rates in southern latitudes were high even in Europe and in the Mediterranean environment, with low sensitivity to climatic fluctuation. On the basis of our results, Project funding: The work was supported by the RGV-FAO Project funded by the Italian Ministery of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies. The online version is available at http://www.springerlink.com. Corresponding editor: Tao Xu. * Maurizio Marchi [email protected]; [email protected] 1
CREA - Research Centre for Forestry and Wood, Viale S. Margherita 80, 52100 Arezzo, Italy
2
Università degli Studi di Milano, DISAA, Via Celoria 2, 20133 Milan, Italy
further common garden experiments should test adaptation and the interaction between genetics and environment of second- or third-generation seeds from old stands across Europe such as done by the old International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) or the European Douglasfir Improvement Research Cooperative (EUDIREC) experimentation programmes. Keywords Pseudotsuga menziesii · Tree ring analysis · Dendroclimatology · Forest plantations · Exotic forest species
Introduction Douglas-fir [Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco] is one of the most promising exotic tree species in Europe, first introduced from North America more than 150 years ago (Isaac-Renton et al. 2014; Schmid et al. 2014) and currently distributed in almost all European countries (Hermann and Lavender 1999). During the first years of experiments, national or local experimental programmes were established in every European country to collect seeds independently from the native range, mainly according to local climate and expert knowledge. Afterward, a broader programme in the second half of the twentieth century was set up.
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