Abstract
Understanding how different mechanisms act and interact in sha** communities and ecosystems is essential to better predict their future with global change. Disturbance legacy, abiotic conditions, and biotic interactions can simultaneously influence tree growth, but it remains unclear what are their relative contributions and whether they have additive or interactive effects. We examined the separate and joint effects of disturbance intensity, soil conditions, and neighborhood crowding on tree growth in 10 temperate forests in northeast China. We found that disturbance was the strongest driver of tree growth, followed by neighbors and soil. Specifically, trees grew slower with decreasing initial disturbance intensity, but with increasing neighborhood crowding, soil pH and soil total phosphorus. Interestingly, the decrease in tree growth with increasing soil pH and soil phosphorus was steeper with high initial disturbance intensity. Testing the role of species traits, we showed that fast-growing species exhibited greater maximum tree size, but lower wood density and specific leaf area. Species with lower wood density grew faster with increasing initial disturbance intensity, while species with higher specific leaf area suffered less from neighbors in areas with high initial disturbance intensity. Our study suggests that accounting for both individual and interactive effects of multiple drivers is crucial to better predict forest dynamics.
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We are grateful to all the students and plot technicians for their major contributions to the tree censuses and functional trait measurements. We thank Yoshiko Iida and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.
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This work was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFF1300501, 2021YFD2200402), the Doctoral Start-up Foundation of Liaoning Province (2022-BS-020), Major Program of Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Science (IAEMP202201), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32001121, 31961133027).
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SF, XGW and CF conceived the ideas, designed methodology. JR, FL, ZQY, ZQH, and XGW collected data; SF and CF designed the model and analyzed data; SF, CF, XGW, FL, and MWC led the writing of the manuscript. All authors contributed critically to the drafts and gave final approval for publication.
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Fang, S., Ren, J., Cadotte, M.W. et al. Disturbance history, neighborhood crowding and soil conditions jointly shape tree growth in temperate forests. Oecologia (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-024-05570-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-024-05570-7