RT Journal Article
T1 Drought legacies are short, prevail in dry conifer forests and depend on growth variability
A1 Gazol, A
A1 Camarero, J. Julio
A1 Sánchez Salguero, Raúl
A1 Hevia Cabal, Andrea
AB 1. The negative impacts of drought on forest growth and productivity last for severalyears generating legacies, although the factors that determine why such legaciesvary across sites and tree species remain unclear.2. We used an extensive network of tree-ring width (RWI, ring-width index) recordsof 16 tree species from 567 forests, and high-resolution climate and normalized differencevegetation index (NDVI) datasets across Spain during the common period1982‒2008 to test the hypothesis that climate conditions and growth features modulatelegacy effects of drought on forests. Legacy effects of drought were calculatedas the differences between detrended-only RWI and NDVI series (i.e. after removinglong-term growth trends) and pre-whitened RWI and NDVI series predicted by amodel including drought intensity. Superposed Epoch Analysis (SEA) was used to estimatewhether legacy effects differed from random. Finally, legacy effects were relatedto water balance, growth persistence and variability, and tree species identity.3. We found a widespread occurrence of drought legacy effects on both RWI andNDVI, but they were seldom significant. According to SEA, first-year droughtlegacies were negative and different from random in 9% and 5% of the RWI and  NDVI series respectively. The number of significant second- and third-year legacieswas substantially lower. Differences between RWI and NDVI legacies indicatethat canopy greenness and radial growth responses to drought are decoupled. Wefound variations in legacies between tree species with gymnosperms presentinglarger first-year drought legacies than angiosperms, which were exposed to lesssevere droughts. Greater growth variability can explain the presence of first-yearRWI legacies in gymnosperms from dry sites despite that the relationship betweengrowth variability and legacies was complex.4. Synthesis. Accounting for species and site responses to drought provides a betterunderstanding of the magnitude and duration of drought legacies on forestgrowth and productivity. Despite the widespread occurrence of growth reductionsin the years during and after drought occurrence, significant legacies werenot very common, mostly lasted one year, and were more widespread in gymnosperms.These are relevant factors to be considered in the future when studyingthe consequences of drought on forest productivity and tree growth.
PB Wiley
SN 1365-2745
YR 2020
FD 2020-06
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10272/18891
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10272/18891
LA eng
NO Gazol, A., Camarero, J. J., Sánchez Salguero, R. ... Hevia, A. (2020). Drought legacies are short, prevail in dry conifer forests and depend on growth variability. Journal of Ecology. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.13435
NO This study was financially supported by: Xunta de Galicia, Grant/Award  Number:  PGIDIT06PXIB502262PR,  GRC  GI-1809;  INIA, Grant/Award  Number:  RTA2006-00117;  CANOPEE,  2014-2020-FEDER  funds;  and  Spanish  Science  Ministry:  RTI2018-096884-B-C31,  RTI2018-096884-B-C33,  AGL2017-83828-C2-2R  and ENV4-CT97-0641 projects. GSB was supported by a ‘Juan de la Cierva Formación’ grant from MINECO (FJCI 2016-30121). This re-search was supported by the BERC 2018-2021 program, and by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through the BC3 María de Maeztu excellence accreditation (MDM-2017-0714) and the IBERYCA (CGL2017-84723-P) project. R.S.S. was sup-ported by VULBOS project (UPO-1263216, FEDER Funds, Andalusia Regional Government, Consejería de Economía, Conocimiento, Empresas y Universidad 2014-2020), and A.H. by PinCaR project (UHU-1266324,  FEDER  Funds,  Andalusia  Regional  Government Consejería de Economía, Conocimiento, Empresas y Universidad 2014-2020).  K.N.  was  supported  by  the  Ministry  of  Education, Science and Sports (Republic of Slovenia, Raziskovalci-2.1-UL-BF- C3330-19-952011). We sincerely thank the in-depth analyses and comments provided by the reviewers.
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 31 may 2026