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Fang S, Ren J, Cadotte MW, Yuan Z, Hao Z, Wang X, Lin F, Fortunel C. Disturbance history, neighborhood crowding and soil conditions jointly shape tree growth in temperate forests. Oecologia 2024:10.1007/s00442-024-05570-7. [PMID: 38824461 DOI: 10.1007/s00442-024-05570-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/14/2022] [Accepted: 05/19/2024] [Indexed: 06/03/2024]
Abstract
Understanding how different mechanisms act and interact in shaping communities and ecosystems is essential to better predict their future with global change. Disturbance legacy, abiotic conditions, and biotic interactions can simultaneously influence tree growth, but it remains unclear what are their relative contributions and whether they have additive or interactive effects. We examined the separate and joint effects of disturbance intensity, soil conditions, and neighborhood crowding on tree growth in 10 temperate forests in northeast China. We found that disturbance was the strongest driver of tree growth, followed by neighbors and soil. Specifically, trees grew slower with decreasing initial disturbance intensity, but with increasing neighborhood crowding, soil pH and soil total phosphorus. Interestingly, the decrease in tree growth with increasing soil pH and soil phosphorus was steeper with high initial disturbance intensity. Testing the role of species traits, we showed that fast-growing species exhibited greater maximum tree size, but lower wood density and specific leaf area. Species with lower wood density grew faster with increasing initial disturbance intensity, while species with higher specific leaf area suffered less from neighbors in areas with high initial disturbance intensity. Our study suggests that accounting for both individual and interactive effects of multiple drivers is crucial to better predict forest dynamics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shuai Fang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China
- Key Laboratory of Terrestrial Ecosystem Carbon Neutrality, Liaoning, China
| | - Jing Ren
- CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China
- AMAP (Botanique et Modélisation de l'Architecture des Plantes et des Végétations), CIRAD, CNRS, INRAE, IRD, Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France
| | - Marc William Cadotte
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Toronto-Scarborough, Toronto, ON, M1C 1A4, Canada
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 3B2, Canada
| | - Zuoqiang Yuan
- Research Center for Ecological and Environmental Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, China
| | - Zhanqing Hao
- Research Center for Ecological and Environmental Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, China
| | - Xugao Wang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China
- Key Laboratory of Terrestrial Ecosystem Carbon Neutrality, Liaoning, China
| | - Fei Lin
- CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China.
- Key Laboratory of Terrestrial Ecosystem Carbon Neutrality, Liaoning, China.
| | - Claire Fortunel
- AMAP (Botanique et Modélisation de l'Architecture des Plantes et des Végétations), CIRAD, CNRS, INRAE, IRD, Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France.
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