Free, in person and onlineThe stable isotopic compositions of carbon and oxygen (d13C and d18O) measured in tree rings are valuable proxies for reconstructing paleoclimate and are increasingly used as paleophysiological proxies. Applying these proxies in ecophysiology and paleoclimate can be challenging as they rely on complex process-based models and poorly constrained input data. In recent years, h...

Blue Intensity (BI) is a cost-effective analytical method for measuring relative wood density in the rings of conifer tree species. Since early concept papers in the 1990s/2000s, there has been a recent explosion in the application of this method for both dendroclimatology and historical dating as well as other dendro-disciplines. The beauty of BI is that the analytical costs, mainly related to the cost of a h...

As of 2020, 56% of the world’s population live in urban areas. These individuals benefit from numerous ecosystem services provided by urban forests, including urban heat island mitigation, energy use reduction, stormwater interception, wildlife and pollinator habitat provision, air pollution removal, and carbon sequestration. Urban greenspaces are also often the most accessible avenue for exposure to the natural environment, providing additional aesthetic, recreati...

Recent studies have shown that long-lived tropical trees are able to recover from senescence stages and maintain high rates of aboveground carbon and biomass accumulation throughout their life span. In this study, we present a tree-ring-based analysis to estimate the annual accumulation of aboveground biomass (AGB) and carbon (C-accumulation) of an Ocotea porosa tree over the last five centuries (1485–2016). The study site is located in southern Brazil, under a subtropical climate. AGB was...

The Miombo woodlands of interior Africa are fire adapted ecosystems with a relatively open canopy dominated by Brachystegia spp., Julbernardia spp., and Isoberlina spp. These ecosystems are threatened due to deforestation, habitat fragmentation, and impacts from climate change, and in Zambia, they are further threatened by the rapidly growing mining industry which contributes to air pollution, contamination of soils and water, and land degradation. In this study, we used modified variable ...

Central Europe has been affected by unprecedented summer droughts in the 21st century, resulting in large-scale forest decline that has impacted many native tree species. Growth analyses of multiple tree species from mid to low elevation in Europe remain sparse, despite decades of dendroclimatological studies, and limit our understanding of how forests will evolve under changing climate conditions. Here, we introduce a new multi-species tree-ring width network of 65 individual sites (>2...

Western Ukraine are largely forested, especially Transcarpatia with more than 50% of the land covered by forests. Despite this fact, Transcarpathian Ukraine belongs to the last European regions without a long and well replicated oak TRW chronology. The first step in compiling a new tree-ring width (TRW) chronology is to start with living trees; therefore, a new recent oak TRW chronology was assembled.In this study, totally 336 oak samples from 16 oak forest stands and 1 sawmill from th...

It has been shown that trees get older in the wet tropics, but the mechanisms behind this observation are still not clear. Literature shows that moisture could directly affect longevity by modulating physiological processes of trees. Other studies point to the potential role of water on tree size, which could indirectly affect longevity if one reconciles to the fact that the growth rate of tropical trees doesn’t differ significantly between wet and dry sites. The third group points to the ...

The Tiger Creek Preserve in central Florida has one of the highest concentrations of threatened and endangered plants and animals in the United States.  Historically it was probably a longleaf pine savanna, but fire exclusion in recent decades has almost certainly led to increased basal area by mid-story oaks (mainly Quercus geminata and Q. laevis).  Determining the date of establishment of these trees, as well as the early fire history of the site, would provide evidence to supp...

Fire-dependent red pine (Pinus resinosa Ait.) vegetation communities in the central Appalac...

Photosynthesis and tree-growth are interconnected processes that are independently modulated by environmental variables. The lack of co-located high spatiotemporal resolution measurements of photosynthesis and growth has limited our understanding of their relationship with each other and their environment. Here, we study photosynthesis and tree-growth at near-instantaneous timescales using in-situ and satellite remote-remote sensing, point dendrometers, quantitative wood anatomy, and Pulse...

The main objective of this project is to quantify the increased productivity of Betula glandulosa Michx in Umiujaq, Nunavik, northern Quebec and evaluate how climatic and edaphic conditions influence this change. The speed at which climate change is affecting the northern ecosystems remains poorly understood and data are needed to anticipate future ecological and physiological trajectories of the vegetation. We produced a tree-ring chronology from approximately 40 specimens of Betula gland...

To estimate the effects of a warmer and drier future climate on mountain forests, we analyzed the climate response of radial growth of five different conifer species along elevation transects between 1070 m and the forest line near 2400 m above sea level within an inner-alpine dry valley in the LTSER area Matsch|Mazia in Northern Italy. For additional information in growth processes and tree hydraulics automatic dendrometer measurements were used. As expected, we generally observed positiv...

Trait plasticity supports tree growth and survival in multiple environments and is important at the edges of species ranges, with limited tree growth. Xylem anatomical traits determine sap, nutrient flow and mechanical strength. Trait analysis can provide information on species adaptation to extreme climatic conditions. My project studies xylem anatomical traits over the distribution range of the sugar maple in Quebec, where it finds its northern limit. We intend to understand the links be...

We reconstructed wildfire history from fire-scars to detect the influences of climatic variability and land-use change on wildfire dynamics in the lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var.  latifolia Engelm.) forests of Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.  New original analyses were performed on 170 cross-section samples collected in the 1970s from 52 sites around Jasper, Alberta.  The updated fire record reveals that fire occurrence was highly variable: site-lev...

Beaver Island, Michigan was occupied by a religious sect led by James J. Strang from 1848-1856. Strang was crowned king of the group, but assassinated by disgruntled followers in 1856, whereupon local fishermen drove the “Strangites” off the island and reportedly took over or destroyed their buildings. Some of the structures from the Strangite period have known construction dates, while details for others are uncertain. We identified the species and cutting dates for logs in eight structur...

Dendroclimatology in the tropical forest regions has lagged behind the more temperate forested regions of the world because of the challenge of determining annual ring formation. Despite over 230 tropical tree species known to form annual rings, the ITRDB shows few published chronologies in tropical forests in Sub-Saharan Africa. As part of the first “Training in Tree-Ring Science and its Applications” workshop conducted in Kitwe, Zambia, our team explored the dendroclimatic potential of B...

The objective of this study is to verify if stable isotopes (C, O) and growth series retrieved from black spruce trees (Picea mariana) growing on boreal lakeshores (riparians trees) show similar variations to those growing away from the shores (non-riparian trees). In NE Canada, riparian trees are particularly interesting because they eventually become lake subfossils, which form the main archives of hydro-climate conditions. However, the extent to which those riparian trees, growing in ol...

Soil moisture (SM) is a crucial variable to the energy balance between the soil and the atmosphere. Given the lack of long-term instrumental SM measurements, information captured by satellites and climate reanalysis emerges as a useful tool. In the Mediterranean ecosystems of Chile (MC; 30°-36°S), several studies have reported a forest decline mainly associated with a persistent mega-drought (MD) during the last decade. We evaluated the main spatio-temporal patterns of tree growth during 1...

Forest carbon (C) balance projections rely on models describing tree physiological processes to assess forest growth. The representation of C allocation and xylogenesis is still a source of uncertainty in these projections. The objective of this project is to improve boreal C balance projections by including explicitly tree C allocation and wood formation processes in modeling.We will use xylogenesis monitoring data from micro-cores and dendrometers over two gradients. A longitudinal g...

Anthropogenic climate warming is altering the ecosystem function of temperate and boreal forests. A number of studies have indicated a rise in overall ecological productivity due to a lengthening growing season, particularly into early spring. However, interactions between temperature and precipitation remain understudied with respect to their combined impacts on the responses of trees to warming in spring. Here, I examine the sensitivity of common Midwestern conifers to multiple dimension...

Dendrochronological archives in the tropics of the Americas have been under-studied for a long time. Some of the challenges include the Identification of tree-ring boundaries in certain tree species, absence of winter dormancy associated to low temperatures in most of the cases, and logistic difficulties of fieldwork in remote sites. However, part of the slow progress is also related to the fact that historically much less resources have been inv...

In their book chapter in 2011 Gagen et al. (2011) highlighted the need for stable isotope dendroclimatology to move beyond studies that simply demonstrate ‘potential’. This symposium, more than a decade since this publication, will focus on dendrogeochemical studies that demonstrate that the field has moved beyond studies focused on ‘potential’. In particular, this session will strive to identify compelling new insights into unique aspect...

Dendrochronological archives in the tropics of the Americas have been under-studied for a long time. Some of the challenges include the Identification of tree-ring boundaries in certain tree species, absence of winter dormancy associated to low temperatures in most of the cases, and logistic difficulties of fieldwork in remote sites. However, part of the slow progress is also related to the fact that historically much less resources have been inv...

The interpretation of stable isotopes in a dendroecological framework can provide powerful insights into how trees adjust physiologically in response to the environment. This symposium aims to bring together researchers who use stable isotopes in tree rings to address ecophysiological responses to environmental changes from intra-annual to multi-decadal resolution. We hope this symposium will enable fruitful discussions and new ideas a...