Tree growth and time-varying climate response along altitudinal transects in central China

Abstract

We present six tree-ring chronologies from Mount Emei and Xinglong Mountain, central China, which were used to study tree growth in the context of local climate variations and to provide insight into the regional response of tree growth to climatic and environmental change. The intra- and inter-site running correlations between tree-ring series may be related to shifts in environmental stress. Persistently declining drought response of tree growth at Mount Emei may be related to the moss-induced "swamping effect". Diebacks at Mount Emei at ~1974 may have been caused by sharply elevated levels of pollutants from a forest fire in 1972. Tree growth at the two lower sites at Xinglong Mountain shows positive correlations with moisture during a water-year, while a negative drought response is seen at the uppermost site. An increase in drought sensitivity of tree growth is observed under the persistent drying trend in recent decades at the Xinglong Mountain. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.