Work

Divergent climate-growth relationships of co-occurring pioneer species under contrasting stand histories in temperate secondary forests

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Pioneer trees dominate early biomass accumulation and carbon sequestration in temperate secondary forests; however, how their climate–growth relationships vary across contrasting stand histories remains unclear. Here, we compared climate–growth relationships of Betula platyphylla (birch) and Populus davidiana (aspen) between unmanaged and historically managed temperate secondary forests in Northeast China using 818 increment cores. We developed species- and management-specific ring-width chronologies and integrated moving-window correlations, cross-validated random forest selection and partial dependence analysis to identify key climatic predictors and nonlinear growth responses. We found that the climatic associations on radial growth differed between species and management types. Birch growth was more strongly associated with temperature-related predictors, with unmanaged stands showing a negative growth response beyond an empirical growth-response boundary of approximately 10.5°C in current June minimum temperature, while managed stands exhibited a shifted thermal response associated with previous November maximum temperature. In contrast, aspen growth was mainly related to precipitation, with leading precipitation-related predictors differing from current summer precipitation in unmanaged stands to previous winter precipitation in managed stands. Projected climate conditions resulted in more frequent and consistent exceedance of temperature-related empirical growth-response boundaries for birch than aspen, indicating greater warming sensitivity of birch growth. These findings indicate that the dominant climatic associations and seasonal response windows of pioneer-tree growth differ between contrasting stand histories, highlighting the importance of considering species-specific climatic responses and stand-history contexts in adaptive management of temperate secondary forests.

Source: Trees Forests and People

DOI: 10.1016/j.tfp.2026.101530