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Articles by Martin Wilmking

Category : Research article

article id 1560, category Research article
Marina Gurskaya, Pavel Moiseev, Martin Wilmking. (2016). Does slope exposure affect frost ring formation in Picea obovata growing at treeline in the Southern Urals? Silva Fennica vol. 50 no. 3 article id 1560. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.1560
Keywords: tree line; topography; frost injury; Siberian spruce
Highlights: Frost ring formation was ubiquitous from continuous forest cover to treeline, but, surprisingly, was not affected by slope exposure; Late frosts in spring were the main cause for frost ring formation; While mainly young trees (< 30 years) recorded frost events, at the climatically harshest site (highest elevation, northeastern exposure), frost events were recorded also in trees older than 70 years.
Abstract | Full text in HTML | Full text in PDF | Author Info

Topographic complexity in mountainous ecosystems strongly influences plant growth and as such also wood formation. This wood formation can possibly be used to understand topographic variation of the main climatic drivers, e.g. by modulating frost events. Here we test the influence of different slope exposures on the spatio-temporal distribution of frost rings in Siberian spruce (Picea obovata Ledeb.) in the Southern Urals, Russia. We sampled on two opposite slopes, northeast (NE) and southwest (SW), on three elevation levels from the highest single trees to closed canopy forest and analysed frost ring occurrence and their seasonal timing. Frost ring formation at all exposure-elevation combinations was common and mainly concentrated in the early part of the growing season. The age until trees record frost rings was equally similar (until about 35 years) on both slopes and different elevational levels with the exception of the climatically harshest site, the highest elevation on the NE slope. While we could not deduce a direct, easily identifiable climatic driver for the formation of frost rings, our analysis shows high potential to disentangle the complex interplay between climate, site condition and tree growth in mountainous ecosystems.

  • Gurskaya, Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology (IPAE), Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences , 8 Marta St. 202, 620144 Ekaterinburg, Russia E-mail: mgurskaya@yandex.ru (email)
  • Moiseev, Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology (IPAE), Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences , 8 Marta St. 202, 620144 Ekaterinburg, Russia E-mail: moiseev@ipae.uran.ru
  • Wilmking, Institute of Botany and Landscape Ecology, Soldmanstrasse 15, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-University Greifswald, 17487 Greifswald, Germany E-mail: wilmking@uni-greifswald.de

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