Recent multispecies tree-growth decline reveals a severe aridity change in Mediterranean Chile

Bibliographic Data

ID15545740
AuthorsÁlvaro González‐Reyes (0000-0001-7525-349X, Austral University of Chile, corresponding author), Duncan A Christie (0000-0003-2540-0986, Austral University of Chile), Isadora Schneider-Valenzuela (0000-0002-2047-4153, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso), Alejandro Venegas‐González (0000-0003-4568-4533, University of O'Higgins), Ariel A Muñoz (0000-0002-1719-4900, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso), Martín A Hadad (0000-0002-9334-064X, National University of San Juan), Tania Gipoulou-Zúñiga (0009-0002-3101-7203, Austral University of Chile), Valeria Tapia-Marzán (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso), Stephanie Gibson‐Carpintero (0000-0002-9036-8823, Saint Louis College La Union), Luiz Santini (0000-0002-5414-5921, Saint Louis College La Union), Carlos LeQuesne (0000-0001-7124-0683, Austral University of Chile), Ricardo Villalba (0000-0001-8183-0310, Instituto de Química del Noroeste Argentino)
Year2024
Volume19
Issue6
Pages064046-064046
Publication date2024-04-18
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Research Letters (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326
PublisherIOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1088/1748-9326/ad4049
OpenAlexW4394907532
LanguageEN
References cited88

Soil moisture (SM) is a crucial factor in the water cycle, sustaining ecosystems and influencing local climate patterns by regulating the energy balance between the soil and atmosphere. Due to the absence of long-term, in-situ measurements of SM, studies utilizing satellite-based data and tree-ring analysis have become valuable in assessing variations of SM at regional and multi-century scales, as well as determining its effects on tree growth. This information is particularly pertinent in biodiversity hotspots made up of semi-arid ecosystems currently threatened by climate change. In the Mediterranean Chile region (MC; 30°–37° S), an ongoing megadrought since 2010 has resulted in a significant decline in the forest throughout the area. However, the impact of SM on tree growth at a multi-species and regional level remains unexplored. We analyzed a new network of 22 tree-ring width chronologies across the MC to evaluate the main spatiotemporal tree-growth patterns of nine woody species and their correlation with SM, using PCA. We also reconstructed the SM variations over the past four centuries and assessed its connection with large-scale climate forcings. Our results indicate that the primary growth patterns (PC1) explained 27% of the total variance and displayed a significant relationship with SM between 1982–2015 ( r = 0.91), accurately reflecting the current megadrought. The tree-ring SM reconstruction covers the period 1616–2018 and shows a strong decrease around the year 2007, revealing an unprecedented recent change in aridity with respect to the last four centuries. The intensity of the South Pacific subtropical anticyclone, which primarily owe their existence to the subsiding branch of the Hadley Cell, appears as the primary climatic mechanism correlated with the reconstruction and the present aridity conditions in MC. The current SM conditions align with anticipated aridity changes in MC, providing a bleak perspective of future regional climate

Arid · Aridity index · Biology · Climate change · Climatology · Geography · Mediterranean climate · Tree (set theory · Environmental Science · Forest ecology and management · Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics · Tree-ring climate responses · Ecology · Geology

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