Shifting climate sensitivity and contrasting growth trends in Juniperus species growing together at opposite range margins

Abstract

The long generation time of woody plants inhibits detection of shifts in their distributions induced by climatic change. Consequently, assessing growth changes within existing populations, especially those near species range margins, can increase understanding of climate change impacts. We apply dendrochronological methods to examine recent radial growth of the ecologically similar species Juniperus communis L. and J. virginiana L. growing under the same conditions but at opposite latitudinal range margins. We use moving correlations to analyze changes in relationships between growth and monthly climatic variables, and regional curve standardization to identify trends in growth rate independent of plant age. For J. communis, growth sensitivity to temperature and precipitation shifted earlier in the spring whereas for J. virginiana only temperature sensitivity shifted earlier over the last 50 years. Since 1920, J. virginiana growth displays an upward trend, but J. communis growth shows both increases and decreases. Recent precipitation increase, rather than warming alone, appears to drive the growth trends, but interactions with temperature and vegetation dynamics, instead of range position, likely account for the differences in trends between species. Although these results generally agree with climate change predictions, they also point out potential difficulties in modeling future species ranges based on growth-climate relationships and growth at range margins.