DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/cr01632
copiedNon-pooled oak (Quercus spp.) stable isotopes reveal enhanced climate sensitivity compared to ring widths
ABSTRACT: Multi-centennial- to millennial-long oak (Quercus spp.) tree-ring width (TRW) chronologies from living and relict wood are frequently used for climate reconstructions, but the amount of explained hydroclimatic variation remains relatively small. Although stable carbon and oxygen isotopic ratios (δ13C and δ18O values) in tree rings may offer enhanced climate sensitivity, our understanding of their paleoclimatic sensitivity is still limited by the general lack of well-replicated and high-resolution datasets. Here, we assessed the temperature, precipitation, and drought signal of annual δ13C and δ18O values and TRW measurements from 21 oaks growing under different ecological settings in the Czech Republic. Compared to the overall low climate sensitivity of TRW, the δ13C and δ18O chronologies revealed significant positive and negative correlations with March-August mean temperature and hydroclimate (for the period 1901-2018), respectively. Additional tests on the effect of sample size demonstrated robust climate sensitivity of the isotopic chronologies when non-pooled alpha cellulose from the latewood of at least 6 individual oaks was used. Our study suggests that oak stable isotopes are possibly the best high-resolution paleoclimatic proxy for the Central European lowlands, as well as any other temperate habitat where oak wood has historically been used as construction timber, and where traditional tree-ring parameters, such as TRW, tend to fail.
KEYWORDS
Michal Rybníček (Corresponding Author)
- Department of Wood Science and Wood Technology, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Mendel University in Brno, 613 00 Brno, Czech Republic
- Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, 603 00 Brno, Czech Republic
Tomáš Kolář (Co-author)
- Department of Wood Science and Wood Technology, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Mendel University in Brno, 613 00 Brno, Czech Republic
- Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, 603 00 Brno, Czech Republic
Alexander Ač (Co-author)
- Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, 603 00 Brno, Czech Republic
Jan Balek (Co-author)
- Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, 603 00 Brno, Czech Republic
Eva Koňasová (Co-author)
- Department of Wood Science and Wood Technology, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Mendel University in Brno, 613 00 Brno, Czech Republic
Miroslav Trnka (Co-author)
- Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, 603 00 Brno, Czech Republic
- Department of Agrosystems and Bioclimatology, Faculty of Agronomy, Mendel University in Brno, 613 00 Brno, Czech Republic
Otmar Urban (Co-author)
- Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, 603 00 Brno, Czech Republic
Ulf Büntgen (Co-author)
- Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, 603 00 Brno, Czech Republic
- Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, CB2 3EN Cambridge, UK
- Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, 8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland
- Department of Geography, Masaryk University, 611 37 Brno, Czech Republic