Open Access
Issue
Published:
09 June 2017
Tapping the tree-ring archive for studying effects of resin extraction on the growth and climate sensitivity of Scots pine
Download citation
438
Views
8
Downloads
22
Crossref
N/A
WoS
25
Scopus
1
CSCD
In the German Democratic Republic (GDR), resin tapping in Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) forests was a major economic activity, and resin-tapped stands are frequently found up until this day. In this study, we investigate how the mechanical damage caused by resin tapping affects the growth and climate sensitivity of Scots pine using a dendroecological approach.
Tree-ring samples were collected from resin-tapped and non-tapped trees in two forest areas in northeastern Germany, and tree-growth patterns were analyzed. For elucidating effects of resin tapping on the climate sensitivity of pine growth, climate-growth relationships and pointer years were studied.
We observed that resin tapping positively affects tree growth at breast height, likely as wood formation is concentrated on the living part of the bole (i.e. after tapping there is no growth taking place on the tapping face due to the mechanical damage done to the cambium). We observed no differences in the climate sensitivity of tapped and non-tapped trees, nor in the occurrence of extreme growth responses.
Our results highlight that resin extraction is, apart from inflicting mechanical damage, not altering the sensitivity of Scots pine growth to climatic conditions.
menu
Tapping the tree-ring archive for studying effects of resin extraction on the growth and climate sensitivity of Scots pine
Abstract
In the German Democratic Republic (GDR), resin tapping in Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) forests was a major economic activity, and resin-tapped stands are frequently found up until this day. In this study, we investigate how the mechanical damage caused by resin tapping affects the growth and climate sensitivity of Scots pine using a dendroecological approach.
Tree-ring samples were collected from resin-tapped and non-tapped trees in two forest areas in northeastern Germany, and tree-growth patterns were analyzed. For elucidating effects of resin tapping on the climate sensitivity of pine growth, climate-growth relationships and pointer years were studied.
We observed that resin tapping positively affects tree growth at breast height, likely as wood formation is concentrated on the living part of the bole (i.e. after tapping there is no growth taking place on the tapping face due to the mechanical damage done to the cambium). We observed no differences in the climate sensitivity of tapped and non-tapped trees, nor in the occurrence of extreme growth responses.
Our results highlight that resin extraction is, apart from inflicting mechanical damage, not altering the sensitivity of Scots pine growth to climatic conditions.
References(22)
Ballesteros JA, Stoffel M, Bodoque JM, Bollschweiler M, Díez-Herrero A (2010) Changes in wood anatomy in tree rings of Pinus pinaster ait. following wounding by flash floods. Tree-Ring Res 66:93-103
Bunn AG (2008) A dendrochronology program library in R (dplR). Dendrochronologia 26:115-124
Chabot BF, Hicks DJ (1982) The ecology of leaf life spans. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 13:229-259
Chen F, Yuan YJ, Yu SL, Zhang TW (2015) Influence of climate warming and resin collection on the growth of Masson pine (Pinus massoniana) in a subtropical forest, southern China. Trees 29:1423-1430
Cook ER, Peters K (1981) The smoothing spline: a new approach to standardizing forest interior tree-ring width series for dendroclimatic studies. Tree-Ring Bull 41:45-53
Elferts D (2007) Scots pine pointer-years in northwestern Latvia and their relationship with climatic factors. Acta Univ Latv 723:163-170
Génova M, Caminero L, Dochao J (2014) Resin tapping in Pinus pinaster: effects on growth and response function to climate. Eur J For Res 133:323-333
Koprowski M, Przybylak R, Zielski A, Pospieszynska A (2012) Tree rings of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) as a source of information about past climate in northern Poland. Int J Biometeorol 56:1-10
Neuwirth B, Schweingruber FH, Winiger M (2007) Spatial patterns of central European pointer years from 1901 to 1971. Dendrochronologia 24:79-89
Papadopoulos AM (2013) Resin tapping history of an aleppo pine forest in Central Greece. Open For Sci J 6:50-53
Pärn H (2003) Radial growth response of Scots pine to climate under dust pollution in northeast Estonia. Wat Air Soil Poll 144:343-361
Pederson N, Cook ER, Jacoby GC, Peteet DM, Griffin KL (2004) The influence of winter temperatures on the annual radial growth of six northern range margin tree species. Dendrochronologia 22:7-29
Schweingruber FH, Eckstein D, Serre-Bachet F, Bräker OU (1990) Identification, presentation and interpretation of event years and pointer years in dendrochronology. Dendrochronologia 8:9-38
van der Maaten-Theunissen M, van der Maaten E, Bouriaud O (2015) pointRes: an R package to analyze pointer years and components of resilience. Dendrochronologia 35:34-38
Wigley TML, Briffa KR, Jones PD (1984) On the average value of correlated time-series, with applications in dendroclimatology and hydrometeorology. J Clim Appl Meteorol 23:201-213
Zang C, Biondi F (2015) treeclim: an R package for the numerical calibration of proxy—climate relationships. Ecography 38:431-436
Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements
We thank the Müritz National Park and the Forest District Reiersdorf for supporting our fieldwork. The comments of three anonymous reviewers were helpful to improve an earlier version of this manuscript.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
FEEDBACK 
TOP