Climate and seasonal rainfall anomalies along an elevational gradient in the El Sira Mountains, Peru, and their impacts
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Climate and seasonal rainfall anomalies along an elevational gradient in the El Sira Mountains, Peru, and their impacts on tree radial growth Armin Niessner1 • Manfred Ku¨ppers1 • James Graham2 • Luis Valenzuela3 Aylin Gu¨ney1 • Sabine Remmele1 • Reiner Zimmermann1
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Received: 18 July 2018 / Accepted: 19 September 2018 Northeast Forestry University 2019
Abstract The explicit purpose of this study was to characterize climate and vegetation along the western slope of the El Sira Mountains (Peru) and evaluate radial tree growth in response to seasonal rainfall anomalies. From May 2011 until September 2015, we monitored radial stem growth of 67 trees using point dendrometers and measured climate within five sites along an altitudinal gradient. The transect extends from lowland terra firme forests, over submontane forests, late and mid successional montane cloud forests up to exposed elfin forests. Monthly rainfall estimates by the TRMM PR satellite (product 3B42) were highly correlated with our rain gauge observations but underestimate rainfall at high altitudes. Different intra-annual tree growth patterns could be identified within each elevational forest type, showing species with strictly seasonal growth, continuous growth or alternating growth patterns independent of the seasons. Stem growth at each site was generally larger during rainy seasons, except for Project funding: This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), the German Corporation for International Cooperation GmbH (GIZ). The online version is available at http://www.springerlink.com Corresponding editor: Yu Lei. & Armin Niessner [email protected] 1
Institute of Botany 210a, University of Hohenheim, Garbenstraße 30, 70599 Stuttgart, Germany
2
Field Museum, 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605, USA
3
Missouri Botanical Garden, Prolongacio´n Bolognesi Mz. E Lote 6, Oxapampa-Pasco, Peru
the elfin forest. The rainy season from October 2013 to March 2014 was extraordinarily dry, with only 73% of long-term mean precipitation received, which resulted in reduced radial growth, again with the exception of the elfin forest. This indicates that montane tropical rain forests may suffer from prolonged droughts, while exposed ridges with elfin forests still receive plenty of precipitation and benefit from receiving more solar radiation for photosynthesis. Keywords Cloud forest Dendrometer Elfin forest Seasonality TRMM PR Tropical montane forest
Introduction The Amazon basin is one of the regions of highest rainfall in the world and is a major source for atmospheric water vapor (Figueroa and Nobre 1990). Over the last decades it has experienced a more variable climate, with severe droughts in 2005 and 2010, causing increased tree mortality (Phillips et al. 2009) and reducing carbon uptake (Feldpausch et al. 2016). Some models predict climateinduced Amazon die-back for this century (Salazar et al. 2007; Cox et al. 2008). Tropical tree gro
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