title: [Growth response of Abies fargesii to climate in Shennongjia Mount of Hubei Province, Southeastern China].
abstract: A well-replicated Abies fargesii tree-ring width chronology in the Shennongjia Mount was developed to investigate its radial growth response to climate variables (e.g., monthly mean tempe- rature and total precipitation) and other growing season indicators (e.g., cumulative temperature, continuous days, initial and final dates). Correlation analyses showed that the tree-ring width was positively correlated to the mean temperatures of February, April and September, and negatively correlated to the total precipitation of September, prior September and prior December. The analyses between the chronology and other growing season parameters showed that tree growth responded positively to the cumulative temperature and continuous days of the growing season. The correlation was the highest when the growing season was defined as the days above the temperature threshold of 9.0 °C. Defined this way, the growing season typically started in late-May and ended in mid-September, lasting about 120 days. Correlation analyses were also conducted between the tree-ring growth and the initial and final dates of the growing season. Results showed that correlation was the highest for initial dates defined at 9.0 °C (with the coefficient of -0.25 and p-value close to 0.05), and for final dates defined at 9.3 °C (with the coefficient of 0.33 and p-value less than 0.05). All these results indicated that the sensitive temperature threshold for photosynthesis of A. fargesii was around 9.0 °C. The year 1978 marked an abrupt shift of climate in southeast China. We compared A. fargesii growth between pre-1978 and post-1978 periods. Results showed that as temperature rose, the growing season was lengthened with both earlier initial dates and later final dates. Longer growing season increased the A. fargesii growth in the Shennongjia Mount, southeastern China.
authors.forename: Xin-yuan
authors.initials: XY
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.forename: Jiang-feng
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: Ling-ling
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Hua-yu
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Lu
mesh_terms: D028202:Abies / Q000254:growth & development*; D002681:China; D002980:Climate; D010788:Photosynthesis; D012621:Seasons; D013696:Temperature; D014197:Trees / Q000254:growth & development