A decade of lost growth in old trees: aging shapes the impacts of drought and late frost events on European beech

Studying growth declines and the factors that cause them, such as droughts or late spring frosts, is key to understanding their influence on forest productivity. However, most of the currently used methodologies to assess these events have drawbacks that can lead to erroneous conclusions. The increa...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Rubio-Cuadrado, Álvaro, Dorado-Liñán, Isabel, López, Rosana, Camarero, Jesús Julio
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/391770
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/391770
https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/105004395420
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Decay
Decline
Legacy
Ontogeny
Resilience index
Spring frost
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spelling A decade of lost growth in old trees: aging shapes the impacts of drought and late frost events on European beechRubio-Cuadrado, ÁlvaroDorado-Liñán, IsabelLópez, RosanaCamarero, Jesús JulioDecayDeclineLegacyOntogenyResilience indexSpring frostStudying growth declines and the factors that cause them, such as droughts or late spring frosts, is key to understanding their influence on forest productivity. However, most of the currently used methodologies to assess these events have drawbacks that can lead to erroneous conclusions. The increasing frequency and importance of these growth declines is linked to a higher climate variability and thus requires more effort to find suitable approaches to quantify their impacts on long-term tree growth. Furthermore, dendroecology generally focuses its efforts on the study of growth relationships with prevailing climatic conditions, giving little weight to the effect of occasional and discrete climatic events on medium- and long-term growth dynamics. Here, we develop a new methodology that consists in: (I) analyzing the largest growth reductions, (II) characterizing climate in those years, (III) identifying the change points in the tree growth function using Bayesian regression, and (IV) quantifying the impact of climate on short-, medium- and long-term growth trends using relative growth and cumulative growth loss indices. We studied the drops in growth suffered by European beech (Fagus sylvatica), caused by both droughts and late frosts. The study was conducted in stands with contrasting structural features (diameter, age) at the southwestern species distribution limit in the central Iberian Peninsula. Our results indicate that extreme climate events have caused a decade of growth loss in old trees (age ca. 100–330 years), and are the factor responsible for the decline of tree vigor. However, the relationships between prevailing climate conditions and tree growth were not significant, highlighting the importance of occasional and discrete climate events as the main drivers of growth. Tree age, rather than tree diameter, shapes tree growth response to extreme climate events such as droughts and late frosts.ARC acknowledges support by “Margarita Salas” postdoctoral fellowship (reference RCMS-22-G1T6IW-17-NLHJ80) of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The authors gratefully acknowledge the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid for providing computing resources on the Magerit Supercomputer (www.cesvima.upm.es).Peer reviewedElsevier BVUniversidad Politécnica de MadridRubio-Cuadrado, Álvaro [0000-0001-5299-6063]Camarero, Jesús Julio [0000-0003-2436-2922]Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas [https://ror.org/02gfc7t72]202520252025info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501Publisher's versioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/10261/391770https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/105004395420reponame:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSICinstname:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)InglésThe underlying dataset has been published as supplementary material of the article in the publisher platform at DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2025.110601https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2025.110601Síinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:digital.csic.es:10261/3917702026-05-22T06:33:51Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv A decade of lost growth in old trees: aging shapes the impacts of drought and late frost events on European beech
title A decade of lost growth in old trees: aging shapes the impacts of drought and late frost events on European beech
spellingShingle A decade of lost growth in old trees: aging shapes the impacts of drought and late frost events on European beech
Rubio-Cuadrado, Álvaro
Decay
Decline
Legacy
Ontogeny
Resilience index
Spring frost
title_short A decade of lost growth in old trees: aging shapes the impacts of drought and late frost events on European beech
title_full A decade of lost growth in old trees: aging shapes the impacts of drought and late frost events on European beech
title_fullStr A decade of lost growth in old trees: aging shapes the impacts of drought and late frost events on European beech
title_full_unstemmed A decade of lost growth in old trees: aging shapes the impacts of drought and late frost events on European beech
title_sort A decade of lost growth in old trees: aging shapes the impacts of drought and late frost events on European beech
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Rubio-Cuadrado, Álvaro
Dorado-Liñán, Isabel
López, Rosana
Camarero, Jesús Julio
author Rubio-Cuadrado, Álvaro
author_facet Rubio-Cuadrado, Álvaro
Dorado-Liñán, Isabel
López, Rosana
Camarero, Jesús Julio
author_role author
author2 Dorado-Liñán, Isabel
López, Rosana
Camarero, Jesús Julio
author2_role author
author
author
dc.contributor.none.fl_str_mv Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Rubio-Cuadrado, Álvaro [0000-0001-5299-6063]
Camarero, Jesús Julio [0000-0003-2436-2922]
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas [https://ror.org/02gfc7t72]
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Decay
Decline
Legacy
Ontogeny
Resilience index
Spring frost
topic Decay
Decline
Legacy
Ontogeny
Resilience index
Spring frost
description Studying growth declines and the factors that cause them, such as droughts or late spring frosts, is key to understanding their influence on forest productivity. However, most of the currently used methodologies to assess these events have drawbacks that can lead to erroneous conclusions. The increasing frequency and importance of these growth declines is linked to a higher climate variability and thus requires more effort to find suitable approaches to quantify their impacts on long-term tree growth. Furthermore, dendroecology generally focuses its efforts on the study of growth relationships with prevailing climatic conditions, giving little weight to the effect of occasional and discrete climatic events on medium- and long-term growth dynamics. Here, we develop a new methodology that consists in: (I) analyzing the largest growth reductions, (II) characterizing climate in those years, (III) identifying the change points in the tree growth function using Bayesian regression, and (IV) quantifying the impact of climate on short-, medium- and long-term growth trends using relative growth and cumulative growth loss indices. We studied the drops in growth suffered by European beech (Fagus sylvatica), caused by both droughts and late frosts. The study was conducted in stands with contrasting structural features (diameter, age) at the southwestern species distribution limit in the central Iberian Peninsula. Our results indicate that extreme climate events have caused a decade of growth loss in old trees (age ca. 100–330 years), and are the factor responsible for the decline of tree vigor. However, the relationships between prevailing climate conditions and tree growth were not significant, highlighting the importance of occasional and discrete climate events as the main drivers of growth. Tree age, rather than tree diameter, shapes tree growth response to extreme climate events such as droughts and late frosts.
publishDate 2025
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2025
2025
2025
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501
Publisher's version
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
format article
status_str publishedVersion
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://hdl.handle.net/10261/391770
https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/105004395420
url http://hdl.handle.net/10261/391770
https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/105004395420
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv The underlying dataset has been published as supplementary material of the article in the publisher platform at DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2025.110601
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2025.110601
Sí
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv Elsevier BV
publisher.none.fl_str_mv Elsevier BV
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
instname:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
instname_str Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
reponame_str DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
collection DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
repository.name.fl_str_mv
repository.mail.fl_str_mv
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