Drought constrains acorn production and tree growth in the Mediterranean holm oak and triggers weak legacy effects
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Date
2023
Authors
García Barreda, SergiValeriano, Cristina
Camarero Martínez, Jesús Julio
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Abstract
Droughts are becoming more frequent in the Mediterranean basin due to warmer conditions. Droughts negatively
impact forests growth for several years, often generating negative legacies or carryover effects. However, these
legacies differ among tree species, sites and drought characteristics and have been mainly studied considering
tree growth or canopy greenness, but ignoring reproductive phenomena. Here, we compare the legacy effects of
drought on acorn and male inflorescence production and radial growth by using a 19-year series of 150 Quercus
ilex individuals in three stands located in north-eastern Spain. We evaluate the relationships between monthly
climate variables, tree-ring width, acorn production and male inflorescence production. For the two driest years
considered (2005 and 2012), when very few acorns were produced, we did not find negative legacy effects on
acorn production in the three years following droughts. The production of male inflorescences did not show any
significant legacy after drought, although its annual variation was related to the climatic conditions of the year
before acorn ripening. Acorn production was higher than expected for some of these years, apparently following
the pattern of tree growth recovery with a certain lag. This compensatory response of acorn production differed
between the two analysed droughts, in accordance with different conditions of drought timing and post-drought
climate conditions. Even though few negative legacy effects of growth and acorn production were found, we
confirmed the negative effect of drought stress on tree growth and acorn production, linked to dry winter
conditions. Our findings confirm that drought features (timing, d
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Bibliographic citation
Agricultural And Forest Meteorology, 2023, 334, 109435
AGROVOC subjects
SequíaBosques
Bellotas
Condiciones ambientales
Quercus ilex
Sponsorship
This research was funded by Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation
and Universities, grant number FORMAL (RTI2018-096884-B-C31) to
JJC. We acknowledge the E-OBS dataset from the EU-FP6 project
UERRA (http://www.uerra.eu) and the Copernicus Climate Change
Service, and the data providers in the ECA&D project (https://www.
ecad.eu). We also thank Gabriel Montserrat Martí, Gabriel Sangüesa
Barreda, Michele Colangelo, Jos´e Manuel Altarriba and Pedro S´
anchez for their help in the field.