Authors: Vicente Rozas Gonzalo PérezdeLis Ignacio GarcíaGonzález José Ramón Arévalo
Publish Date: 2011/04/23
Volume: 25, Issue: 5, Pages: 895-905
Abstract
Little is known concerning the effects of wildfires on tree radial growth and their climatic response under contrasting regimes of fog water inputs on oceanic islands On Tenerife Canary Islands windward slopes are humid with highfog frequency due to influence of wet trade winds while climate on leeward slopes is more arid We used treering records of Pinus canariensis Sweet ex Spreng to quantify the effects of a fire of known date on radial growth and determine the main limiting climatic factors for growth Radial growth patterns and their responsiveness to fire severity and climatic variation differed between windward and leeward slopes Surface fire did not significantly impact growth while crown fire caused shortterm growth reduction and even cessation more pronounced on the windward slope Growth rates treering common signal and climate sensitivity were smaller on the windward slope with cold winters and summer water stress limiting growth On the leeward slope climate explained a greater amount of growth variation mainly due to negative effects of high October–December sealevel pressures causing dry winter conditions Contrasting growth dynamics on both slopes may result from diverging physiological effects of water inputs and reduced radiation caused by fog drip Our findings suggest that dating growth suppressions and absent rings are useful to date past highseverity crown fires in P canariensis forests in addition to ordinary fire scars dating indicative of lowseverity surface firesWe thank Adrián González Sonia Lamas Pilar Manso Irene Outeda Beatriz RodríguezMorales and Ana Soliño for laboratory assistance The staff of Corona Forestal Natural Park of Tenerife facilitates access to field sites V Rozas benefited by a visiting fellowship to the University of La Laguna funded by Consellería de Innovación e Industria Xunta de Galicia and research contracts by INIAXunta de Galicia and CSIC This research was partially funded by Consellería de Innovación e Industria Xunta de Galicia PGIDIT06PXIB502262PR and INIA Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation RTA200600117
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