Spatial climate-dependent growth response of boreal mixedwood forest in western Canada

- Regional drought was the dominate contributor affecting tree growth in western Canada.
- White spruce growth was more sensitive to drought stress than trembling aspen.
- Spatial classification should be involved in study about tree growth response to climate.

The western Canadian mixedwood boreal forests were projected to be significantly affected by regional drought. However, drought degrees were spatially different across elevations, longitudes and latitudes, which might cause different tree growth responses to climate change in different sub-regions within western Canada. In this way, regional classification of western Canadian boreal forests and understanding spatial tree growth responses to climate might be necessary for future forest management and monitoring. In this paper, tree-ring chronologies of two dominant tree species, trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) and white spruce (Picea glauca (Moench.) Voss), were obtained from mixed forest stands distributed across western Canada to study spatial tree growth response to climate based on three regional classification schemes (a phytogeographic sub-region classification, a natural sub-region classification and non-classification). Phytogeographic sub-region classification was estimated based on tree ring samples we collected in this study, while natural sub-region classification was previously developed based on analysis of regional differences in vegetation, soil, site and climate conditions. Results showed that air temperature did not significantly increase, while drought stress became more severe between 1985 to 2010. Relationships between trembling aspen growth and temperature differed between north and south parts of the study area, resulting from spatial difference in water supply. Trembling aspen growth was influenced by temperature or moisture variables of the previous years. White spruce growth was influenced primarily by moisture variables (current or previous year), and response coefficients between white spruce and drought conditions (represented by drought code) were negative in all phytogeographic sub-regions, suggesting that white spruce was more sensitive to drought stress under climate change. As a late-successional dominant species, increasingly drought stress on white spruce might cause significant alteration in forest composition of western Canadian boreal forest.