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Interactive effect of extreme climatic event and pollution load on growth and wood anatomy of spruce

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Air pollution intensified the effect of climatic extreme and left a detectable mark in growth and wood-anatomy parameters over 3–5 years following the stress event.

Abstract

The forests in the region of so-called “Black Triangle” suffered from heavy air-pollution load until the end of the 1980s. Acid deposition reduction in 1990s led to an improvement of forest condition. However, the positive development was interrupted by an extreme climatic and pollution stress during the winter of 1995/96. It resulted in an acute damage of spruce stands, manifested by drying and falling of needles and significant decrease of bud vitality. The methods of tree-ring and quantitative wood-anatomy analysis were employed to study the impact of this event on growth and wood anatomy of Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.). Reexamining the tree response remains challenging, because the knowledge about the impact of acute pollution stress on xylem traits is still lacking. The annual radial growth showed a clear reaction to the stress event, manifesting as a strong growth reduction in 1996–1998. Height growth was affected in similar manner, but only recovered in 2001. Anatomical features of both earlywood (EW) and latewood (LW) were affected by the stress, however, with the maximal effect occurring with a lag of 1 year from the time of the event. The EW part was more responsive and showed a higher variability of parameters than the LW part. During the 1996–2000 stress period, tree growth was driven by climatic factors and by the air-pollution load; later, the impact of air pollution was no longer pronounced and tree growth was correlated to the content of nutrients.

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Acknowledgements

The study was supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, the program COST CZ, project No. LD13007, by the project of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic—Resolution RO0115 (reference number 5774/2015-MZE-17011), by the IGA grant (Czech University of Life Sciences) “Impact of low temperatures and air pollution on chosen cell parameters on the example of Picea abies trees from the Krušné hory (Ore Mountains)” A01/15, and by the project NAZV QJ1220316 “Evaluation of the anticipated changes in growth and mortality of forests stands, effects on forest production functions and development of adaptation strategy”. The work was carried out under the framework of the COST FP1106 network STReESS. Finally, we acknowledge both anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Forestry and Game Management Research Institute, Strnady 136, 252 02, Jíloviště, Czech Republic

    Monika Vejpustková, Tomáš Čihák, Radek Novotný & Vít Šrámek

  2. Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 1176, 165 21, Praha 6-Suchdol, Czech Republic

    Tomáš Čihák, Alina Samusevich & Aleš Zeidler

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  1. Monika Vejpustková
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  2. Tomáš Čihák
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  6. Vít Šrámek
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Correspondence to Monika Vejpustková.

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Communicated by E. Liang.

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Vejpustková, M., Čihák, T., Samusevich, A. et al. Interactive effect of extreme climatic event and pollution load on growth and wood anatomy of spruce. Trees 31, 575–586 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-016-1491-5

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