Forest structural diversity determines tree growth synchrony in response to climate change

J. Astigarraga, J. Calatayud, P. Ruiz-Benito, J. Madrigal-González, J. Tijerín-Triviño, M. A. Zavala, E. Andivia, A. Herrero
2023 · doi:10.1101/2023.03.17.532989
preprint OA: closed CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0
📄 Open PDF View at publisher

Abstract

After centuries of deforestation, many industrialised countries are experiencing an increase in forest area and biomass due to changes in land- and forest-use since the mid-20 th century. At the same time, the impacts of climate change on forests are aggravating, but the interplay between past land- and forest-use (i.e. land- and forest-use legacies) and climate change in forest functioning remains elusive. Here using network theory and linear mixed models, we quantified how land- and forest-use legacies modulate tree growth synchrony in response to climate change. We analysed tree growth data from European beech ( Fagus sylvatica L.) stands with different histories of forest management at the species’ rear edge. We found that tree growth synchrony increased following heatwaves, late spring frosts, and reduced precipitation. Interestingly, the greatest tree growth synchrony occurred in recently-established forests, while stands containing large trees and heterogeneous tree sizes showed much lower growth synchrony. Our results highlight the importance of maintaining large trees and structurally heterogeneous forests to mitigate the negative effects of climate change on forest productivity, and thereby, increase forest resilience to future forest climate risks.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Citation neighborhood (no data yet)

We don't have any in-corpus citations linked to this paper yet. The paper's references may be in our DB but unresolved to ``paper_id`` (resolution happens at ingest when the cited DOI matches a row we already have). Run the cross-source citation reconcile pass to retry.

References (55)

Source provenance

crossref
last seen: 2026-06-19T06:35:23.779206+00:00
europepmc
last seen: 2026-05-19T01:45:01.086888+00:00
unpaywall
last seen: 2026-05-22T02:00:06.705733+00:00
License: CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0