Influence of climate changes on tree-ring characteristics of Scots pine provenances in southern Siberia (forest-steppe)

Abstract

Scots pine provenances from all over Russia planted in 1964 at the forest-steppe zone were analyzed. Eight tree-ring characteristics from 12 different provenances were measured densitometrically. The time span of tree-ring observation covers the period from 1969 to 1997. The sensitivity coefficient of latewood width, latewood and maximum densities and latewood percentage decreases in relation to the increasing latitude of the provenances. The growth of all studied provenances is dictated by the local weather and climate. The correlation coefficients of indices between the local provenance and the other provenances are not lower than 0.46-0.97, and the synchronicity coefficients are minimally 0.84. The Euclidean distances vary from 0.11 to 0.13 between the local provenance and the other provenances. All statistical parameters show that the interannual variability reflects the prevailing influence of the local weather conditions. Variability of weather conditions determines up to 87% of the growth variability in the forest-steppe of southern Siberia.