Influence of climatic conditions on growth rings of Salix uva-ursi Pursh from the southeastern shore of Hudson Bay, Subarctic Canada

Abstract

Over the past decades, warmer air temperature and spatiotemporal changes in the amount and patterns of precipitation have been observed at high latitudes. Such interannual variability in climatic conditions has a strong influence on the dynamics of biological processes regulating terrestrial ecosystems. Dendroclimatology can improve our understanding of the impacts of climate change on vegetation. Based on ring width and frost rings of bearberry willow (Salix uva-ursi) individuals sampled on the southeastern shore of Hudson Bay, Nunavik (Subarctic Québec, Canada), we built a reliable 105-year growth chronology. A complex dendroclimatological analysis, using the standard approach (mean temperature and precipitation sums), extreme variables, and various climatological indices based on daily data, was conducted in order to precisely describe the relationship between annual variations in growth rings and climatic conditions. The growth of Low Arctic willows in the Hudson Bay region is determined by changes in air temperatures as well as precipitation during the summer. However, temperature increases and reductions in amounts of rainfall may intensify drought stress, which is unfavorable for this species. We found that analysis of daily amounts and intensity of precipitation improved our understanding of the factors conditioning the growth of the studied species in an extreme habitat.