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Variation in stem radial growth of the Australian conifer, Callitris columellaris, across the world's driest and least fertile vegetated continent

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-17, 14:07 authored by Lynda PriorLynda Prior, Grierson, PF, McCaw, WL, Tng, DYP, Scott NicholsScott Nichols, David BowmanDavid Bowman
Climate change could alter the biogeography of many tree species. However, there have been few studies of tree growth across climatic gradients at a continental scale. Callitris columellaris is a widespread conifer that spans many climates and landscape positions across Australia. Our aim was to determine how stem radial growth of C. columellaris varies with tree size and with the biogeographic factors of rainfall, temperature, soil fertility and inter-tree competition. We sampled cores from trees at 85 sites in biomes ranging from tropical savanna to arid desert and temperate forest, and measured widths of the 100 outermost growth rings. We analysed ring width in relation to changes in tree age and diameter, and also evaluated the influence of the biogeographic factors on the width of the ten most recently formed rings. The average width of outermost rings varied only slightly with stem diameter, because the decrease in ring width with age and diameter within trees is offset by an increase with diameter among trees. Our analyses thus explain the weak, inconsistent relationships often observed between stem diameter and growth rate amongst trees. The most important biogeographic factors were the climatic ones: across Australia, ring width increased with both mean annual rainfall and mean annual temperature. These relationships were largely driven by continental scale differences between the tropical and the southern (arid plus temperate) sites, while relationships within climate zones were comparatively weak. Ring width decreased with intense inter-tree competition but showed little correlation with available soil nitrogen or phosphorus.

Funding

Department of Environment and Energy (Cwth)

History

Publication title

Trees

Volume

26

Issue

4

Pagination

1169-1179

ISSN

0931-1890

Department/School

School of Natural Sciences

Publisher

Springer

Place of publication

Tiergartenstr 17, Heidelberg, 69121 Germany

Rights statement

Copyright Springer-Verlag 2012

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Terrestrial biodiversity

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