Exploiting historical DENDROMETER data: A first analysis to identify GLOBAL patterns (DendroGlobal)

• Research unit: COST
• Project number: C14.0104

Key words (English)

Drought stress; intra-seasonal growth; forest ecosystem; climate impacts; climate change; dendrometers

Research programs (English)

COST-Action FP1106 - STReESS - Studying Tree Responses to extreme Events: a SynthesiS

Short description (English)

The scientific quest to understand, and the societal need to properly manage, forest ecosystems in a changing climate, has catalyzed the use of dendrometers to quantify plant dynamics at sub-daily resolution over multi-annual periods. Dendrometer data have proven useful to understand water fluxes and storage in tree stems as well as growth dynamics. To date, dendrometer data have been primarily employed at the site level with little attention given to large-scale links among climate, stress, and growing season characteristics. The COST Action STREeSS aims at exploiting historical data to perform global analysis of growth and drought stress tolerances. DendroGlobal will contribute to the research objectives of the COST Action by advancing the development and analysis of a global dendrometer network. A metadata inventory, filled by local investigators in support of this aim, already has ~120 sites. Our research activities will focus on 1) deriving improved metrics to attribute water versus growth signals, 2) understanding 'local' sources in variation (e.g., influence of dendrometer type or tree size) and 3) quantifying large-scale emergent patterns driven by environmental stress and seasonal progression. Our efforts will be accompanied with the large task to harmonize these diverse data sets. In close collaboration with COST Action topic group and other data providers, we expect to advance knowledge of climatic stressors and growing season variation across the Earth's biomes.

Further information (English)

Full name of research-institution/enterprise: Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL Group leader

Partners and International Organizations (English)

AT; BE; BA; BG; HR; CZ; DK; EE; FI; FR; DE; EL; HU; IS; IE; IL; IT; LU; NL; NO; PL; PT; RO; RS; SK; SI; ES; SE; TR; UK; RU; UA; AU; US; CA; NZ

Abstract (English)

The scientific quest to understand, and the societal need to properly manage, forest ecosystems in a changing climate, has catalyzed the use of dendrometers to quantify plant dynamics at sub-daily resolution over multiannual periods. Dendrometer data have proven useful to undetstand water fluxes and storage in tree sterns as weil as growth dynarnics. To date, dendrometer data have been primarily empioyed at the site level with little attention given to large-scale links among climate, stress, and growing season characteristics. The project DendroGlobal situated within the framework ofthe COST Action STREeSS fFP1 106) aimed to exploft historical data to perform global analyses of growth and drought stress tolerances. DendroGlobal contributes to the research objectives of the COST Action by advancing the developmentand analysis ofa global dendrometer network. Currently, data from about 100 sites worldwide are included in the DendroGlobal database. The research activities focused on i) deriving improved metrics to attribute water versus growth signals, ii) understanding “local“ sources in variation (eg., influence of dendrometer type or tree size), and iii) quantifying large-scale emergent patterns driven by environmental stress and seasonal progression. The efforts are accompanied with the arge task to harmonize the diverse datasets included in the project. In dose collaboration with the corresponding COST Action topic group and other data providers, this project advanced knowledge of climatic stressors and growing season variation across the Earth‘s biomes.

References in databases (English)

Swiss Database: COST-DB of the State Secretariat for Education and Research Hallwylstrasse 4 CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland Tel. [phone] Swiss Project-Number: C14.0104