Inverse effects of recent warming on trees growing at the low and high altitudes of the Dabie Mountains,subtropical China

Understanding how tree rings of different species at different elevations respond to climate, and whether their relationship is stable over time is crucial not only for credible palaeoclimatic reconstructions, but also for better awareness of forest growth dynamics and therefore making scientific management decisions against a background of global warming. In this work, six tree-ring chronologies of Pinus taiwanensis at three sites from 800 to 1550 m above sea level (asl), and Pinus massoniana at three sites from 500 to 650 m asl were developed in the Dabie Mountains (DBS), subtropical China. In recent decades, only P. taiwanensis at 1550 m asl showed a positive growth-trend. Both P. taiwanensis at 800 m asl and three low-altitude P. massoniana at 500–650 m asl showed negative growth trends. Climate-growth relationship analyses revealed that 1) temperature was the dominant climatic factor that controlled tree-ring growth in DBS. It exerted most influence on trees growing at the lower and upper limit, than for trees growing at altitudes from 650 to 1450 m asl. Only precipitation in October positively influenced tree growth of P. massoniana at all three sites and P. taiwanensis at 800 m asl; 2) There was a shift in temperature’s impact on trees, that was from significantly negative relationship at the four lower altitudes, mainly for the current growing-season, to significantly positive relationship in previous February–July period at the highest altitude. The higher the altitude, the more significant the lag effect of temperature on trees; 3) The influence of temperature on tree growth at most altitudes were variable over time. The positive influence of temperature on trees at 1550 and 1450 m asl was comparatively stable during the early period of instrumental records. It strengthened evidently since the early 1990s, which is coincidental with the timing of the evident temperature increase in DBS. On the contrary, the negative impacts of temperature on tree growth at 800, 650 and 500 m asl had weakened since the early 1990s. Besides the increase of water use efficiency of trees, we speculated that the increasing influence of precipitation in May and July weakened the relationship between temperature and tree rings at low altitudes. This work points out that the upper and lower limits of forest in DBS offer the preferred locations for future sampling in climate reconstruction, but the stability of tree growth and climate over time should be considered. Moreover, forest management should give priority to altitude factors, in addition to tree species representation.