Land-Use Legacies and Climate Change as a Double Challenge to Oak Forest Resilience: Mismatches of Geographical and Ecol
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Land-Use Legacies and Climate Change as a Double Challenge to Oak Forest Resilience: Mismatches of Geographical and Ecological Rear Edges A. J. Pe´rez-Luque,1,2*
G. Gea-Izquierdo,3
and R. Zamora1,2
1
Instituto Interuniversitario de Investigacio´n del Sistema Tierra en Andalucı´a (IISTA-CEAMA), Universidad de Granada, Avda. del Mediterra´neo s/n, 18006 Granada, Spain; 2Grupo de Ecologı´a Terrestre, Departamento de Ecologı´a, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Granada, Avda. Fuentenueva s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain; 3INIA-CIFOR, Ctra. La Corun˜a km 7.5, 28040 Madrid, Spain
ABSTRACT Global change challenges ecosystems in xeric locations transformed by intensive human use. Resilience to drought of relict Mediterranean Quercus pyrenaica populations in the southern Iberian Peninsula was analyzed in relation to historical records of land use, combining dendroecological growth of adult trees and greenness (EVI) as proxies for secondary and primary growth. The growth trends reflected a strong influence of old land-use legacies (firewood removal) in the current forest structure. Trees were highly sensitive to moisture availability, but both primary growth and secondary growth expressed high resilience to drought events over the short and the long term. Resilience and the tree growth response to climate followed a water-stress gradient. A positive growth trend since the late 1970s was particularly
Received 10 December 2019; accepted 15 August 2020 Electronic supplementary material: The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-020-00547-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Author Contributions AJPL, GGI and RZ conceived of the study, conducted field work, and collected the data. AJPL and GGI performed the lab work. AJPL analyzed data and led the writing of the paper. All authors contributed in the writing process to the drafts and gave final approval for publication. *Corresponding author; e-mail: [email protected]
evident in mesic (colder and wetter) high-elevation stands, but absent in the most xeric (warmer and drier) stands. The high values of resilience observed suggest that the studied Q. pyrenaica populations are located in a geographical but not a climatic or ecological rear edge. Resilience of oak stands to drought events was not spatially homogeneous across the mountain range, due to differences in ecological conditions and/or past management legacies. This is particularly relevant for rear-edge populations where topographic and biophysical variability can facilitate the existence of refugia. Key words: Extreme drought; Resilience; Rear edge; Quercus pyrenaica; Tree growth; Dendroecology; Remote sensing.
HIGHLIGHTS Quercus pyrenaica rear-edge forests showed high resilience to drought Resilience and the growth response to climate followed a water-stress gradient Tree growth and vegetation indices were highly sensitive to drought and land use
A. J. Pe´rez-Luque and others
INTRODUCTION The response of species to changing environments (for example,
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