[MCN] 3 for forest-health watchers

[Lance Olsen]

"Contrary to the expectation that surviving trees have weathered 
severe drought, the hydraulic deterioration demonstrated here reveals 
that surviving regions of these forests are actually more vulnerable 
to future droughts due to accumulated xylem [vascular] damage."

WILLIAM R. L. ANDEREGG et al. Drought's legacy: multiyear hydraulic 
deterioration underlies widespread aspen forest die-off and portends 
increased future risk. Global Change Biology (2013) 19, 1188-1196, 
doi: 10.1111/gcb.12100
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"Our results are quite striking. First, temporal increases of climate 
change-associated mortality do not occur only in regions with 
temporal water deficit increases, but also in areas without temporal 
water deficit increases."

Yong Luo and Han Y. H. Chen. Climate change-associated tree mortality 
increases without decreasing water availability. Ecology Letters, 
(2015) doi: 10.1111/ele.12500
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"Given their relatively young age and favorable competitive status in 
these forests, these sugar maples should be experiencing the best 
growth rates of their lives."

"The last few decades have brought warmer and wetter conditions to 
the Adirondacks, which are typically good for plant growth," said Dr. 
Colin Beier, an associate professor of ecology at ESF who supervised 
Bishop's thesis research. "Meanwhile, there have been big strides in 
reducing acid rain, which is especially damaging to sugar maple. 
Given these changes, we would expect these trees to be thriving, but 
they are not."

Journal article here: (Open access)

Regional growth decline of sugar maple (Acer saccharum) and its 
potential causes
Daniel A. Bishop, Colin M. Beier, Neil Pederson, Gregory B. Lawrence, 
John C. Stella, Timothy J. Sullivan
Ecosphere  Volume 6, Issue 10 (October 2015)
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/ES15-00260.1
http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/ES15-00260.1
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