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Atlantic white-cedar populations sampled in the Northeastern United States: 1-Appleton Bog, ME; 2-Saco Heath, ME; 3-Westminster, MA; 4-Monson Cedar Swamp, MA; 5-North Madison Swamp, CT; 6-High Point, NJ; 7-Uttertown Bog, NJ. Stippled area represents the northern distribution of Atlantic white-cedar as adapted from Little (1971).
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Atlantic white cedar is a wetland tree species with ecological and commercial importance that is distributed
primarily along the Atlantic seaboard to south central Maine. The number of AWC swamps has declined due to human impacts. The potential for rapid climate change and AWC’s threatened status make it important to study factors affecting its gro...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... Bog, ME, Saco Heath, ME, Westminster, MA, Monson, MA, North Madison, CT, High Point, NJ, and Uttertown, NJ ( fig. 1). To characterize forest composition at each site, four measurements of basal area (BA) using a cruise prism were taken at every fourth or fifth tree cored and averaged. Here we report only those species making up > 10 percent of stand BA (table ...
Citations
... In general, in high elevations with cool thermal conditions, tree growth is limited more by low summer temperatures (Buckley et al., 1997;Hopton and Pederson, 2005;Wang et al., 2005;Savva et al., 2006;Levanič et al., 2009;Takahashi and Okuhara, 2013). The higher the elevation, the lower the net primary production (NPP) along the elevational gradient of the present study (Takeda and Takahashi, 2020). ...
Soil respiration is a major pathway for CO 2 emissions from ecosystems. Owing to its temperature dependency, the soil respiration rate is expected to increase due to global warming, particularly at high elevations. To clarify the effects of soil temperature and volumetric soil water content on soil respiration rates ( R S ), we examined seasonal changes in R S at five elevations of 1600–2800 m in subalpine coniferous forests in Japan for 5 years. The aboveground biomass of forest stands decreased from 282 to 29 Mg/ha as elevation increased. The monthly mean R S was lower at higher elevations from July to October. While R S was positively correlated with soil temperature at each elevation, the effect of soil water content on R S varied among the five elevations. Seasonal changes in R S could be reproduced from soil temperature and soil water content for each elevation in each year. R S at any temperature was lower at higher elevations because R S was also positively correlated with aboveground biomass. From 1600 to 2800 m, the annual R S was estimated to decrease from 2.79 to 0.74 kg CO 2 year –1 m –2 . The annual R S along the elevational gradient was predicted to increase by 9–12% and 30–42% under low and high greenhouse gas emission scenarios (annual mean temperature 0.76°C and 3.3°C increases), respectively, during 2095–2100 compared to the current period 2015–2020. Increased soil respiration rate will accelerate global warming via the positive feedback. Overall, our findings suggest that soil respiration evaluation is important not only for calculating the carbon balance of forest stands due to global warming but also for predicting global warming owing to the feedback of CO 2 emission from soil to atmosphere.
... The economic value of AWC timber grew because the wood is incredibly durable, 90 aromatic, lightweight, decay-resistant, and weather-resistant (Laderman et al., 1989;Williams, 2008). Living AWC swamps provide a unique and specialized environment and habitat, often supporting many rare plant and animal species (Hopton and Pederson, 2003), such as the federally threatened plant swamp pink (Helonias bullata) (Rawinski and Cassin, 1991) and the globally rare butterfly Hessel's hairstreak (Callophrys hesseli) (Mascon 2015). ...
... Appropriate species for dendroclimatology are often a function of where a population resides within its range, latitude, and local timber harvest practices (Pederson et al., 2013;Hopton and Pederson, 2005). Mesic and maritime forests of the NE coast experience dampened temperature extremes and regionally specific hydroclimate compared to inland forests (Brown et al., 2010). ...
For more than a century, tree-ring research has identified relationships between climatic and ecological conditions and tree growth to describe past environments and constrain future ecosystem vulnerabilities. Tree-ring records are frequently used as environmental proxies that extend knowledge of past climate and ecology on millennial scales. Many of the most pressing global change questions facing North America concern the rate of climate change and vulnerability of ecosystems and society along the coast. The opportunities and applications in dendrochronology continue to grow with advancing methodologies, faster computational ability, and the cost-reduction of many chemical and anatomical analyses. Here, we propose that many pressing global change questions that affect coastal communities can be addressed using dendrochronological techniques. We review coastal tree-ring studies that demonstrate the utility and potential for future tree-ring studies in the northeastern, southeastern, northwestern, and southwestern North American coasts. Additionally, we show that tree-ring chronologies along the coast give insight into local and regional climate phenomena that are distinct from nearby, inland tree-ring chronologies of the same species. Lastly, we identify opportunities for coastal dendrochronology and encourage the collection of more tree-ring records that are directly impacted by coastal phenomena.
... The economic value of AWC timber grew because the wood is incredibly durable, aromatic, lightweight, decay-resistant, and weather-resistant (Laderman, Brody, and Pendleton, 1989;Williams, 2008). Living AWC swamps provide a unique and specialized environment and habitat, often supporting many rare plant and animal species (Hopton and Pederson, 2003), such as the federally threatened plant, swamp pink (Helonias bullata) (Rawinski and Cassin, 1991) and the globally rare butterfly Hessel's hairstreak (Callophrys hesseli) (Mason, 2015). ...
Once prominent up the eastern coast of the United States, freshwater wetlands with Atlantic white cedar (AWC; Chamaecyparis thyoides L. (B.S.P.)) are now vanishing due to saltwater intrusion and anthropogenic landscape alterations. This study utilizes a historic, anthropogenic disturbance to provide insight into the AWC response to salinization. A major straightening and dredging project in the 1920s, including 16 oxbow cuts, allowed brackish water to move upstream in the St. Jones River in Dover, Delaware, leading to the die-off of an AWC swamp. The sampled AWC experienced climate change, storms, hydrologic alterations, and sea-level rise. Annual ring width and suppression event chronologies were developed from dead AWC and were compared to groupings of climate variables in the pre-disturbance (1895–1920) and post-disturbance (1928–1958) periods. Results of the dendrochronological analysis indicate that the AWC in this study died at an average age of 49.3 years, earlier than typically expected for such species. After the straightening and dredging, the AWC experienced changes in growth response to temperature while suppression events became positively correlated with elevated temperature (p = 0.024) and high precipitation (p = 0.019). The system also showed signs of becoming more sensitive to storm events in the post-disturbance period.
... However, microsite topography has been shown to influence climate-growth dynamics of high elevational Pinus balfouriana and treeline Pinus longaeva (e.g., Bunn et al., 2005Bunn et al., , 2018Lloyd et al., 2017). Some studies of Chamaecyparis thyoides reveal large-scale synchrony in the climate-growth dynamics (Hopton and Pederson, 2005; Blank cells represent information where ecosystem-level data was not collected. Populations are arranged from northern to more southern locations within our network. ...
... Notably for conifers, but not for broadleaf species (e.g., Pederson et al., 2004;Tardif et al., 2006) cool temperatures tend to constrain growth in trees near the northern end of their distributions (e.g., Cook and Cole, 1991;Cook et al., 1998;Bhuta et al., 2009). Growth of populations of Chamaecyparis thyoides closer to their northern distribution is most strongly constrained by cool temperatures Hopton and Pederson, 2005;Pearl et al., 2017). Preliminary evidence from Hopton et al. (2004) indicates that precipitation and water availability tends to become more important to the growth of Chamaecyparis thyoides that are closer to the southern end of the distribution of the species, similar to the response of several species in mesic North America and Europe (Cook and Cole, 1991;Bhuta et al., 2009;Babst et al., 2013;Harvey et al., 2019). ...
... Growth of Chamaecyparis thyoides trees in northern populations, from ∼41-44 degrees north latitude, increased with warmer winter and spring temperatures more than trees in the southern end of our network (Figures 4-7 and Supplementary Figures S4, S5, S7, S8). These findings not only support work with Chamaecyparis thyoides in our study region, they also support findings that growth of conifers nearer to the northern end of their distribution is more limited by nongrowing season minimum temperatures than more southerly populations (Cook and Cole, 1991;Cook et al., 1998;Hopton and Pederson, 2005;Bhuta et al., 2009). ...
The impact of ecological and climatological factors on individual organisms over time and space is inherently complex and creates substantial uncertainty about how climate change will influence the global biosphere. To understand some of this complexity, we investigated the factors influencing individual growth of Chamaecyparis thyoides over 61 years within 18 populations across the ca 1500 km and 11 degrees of latitude. We then applied a vulnerability framework to understand how the variability of tree growth response to climate varies between populations and regions across our network. Surprisingly, we found the growth of trees in the central portion of our network responded more synchronously to warming and drought than trees in the southern end of our network, suggesting greater vulnerability in the central populations with continued warming. Our analyses and framework approach revealed substantial complexity in growth responses to climate within and between populations. We found potential resiliency within all populations, but higher inter-population than intra-population variability in response to climate. We found that latitude was an important proxy for the growth response to temperatures during the non-growing season and spring, but that ecosystem structure can modify the growth response and vulnerability to drought during the summer. The range of growth responses to warming is greater in the southern populations than in more northernly populations. This asymmetrical distribution of growth response across our study network provides evidence for a kind of ecological hysteresis, more southerly populations could be more resilient with warming. Despite the fact that this species primarily lives in wetlands, we found drought stress to be an important constraint on growth. Our study and analyses help to explain the disparities between forecasts of how climatic change might impact tree species and ecosystems over space.
... This resistance also facilitates the preservation of subfossil wood buried in sediments, below saltmarsh turf, and in inter-tidal environments for thousands of years (Bartlett, 1909;Heusser, 1949;Gleba, 1978;Laderman, 1989). Extensive harvesting of the species since the early 17th century limits the ages of modern living AWC chronologies to the late 18th century (Hopton and Pederson, 2005;Pearl et al., 2017). Investigations of the climate sensitivity of the species have shown that AWC ring width is significantly correlated with regional temperatures (Hopton and Pederson, 2005;Pearl et al., 2017), and local hydroclimate in certain coastal geological settings (Pearl et al., in revision at Journal of Geophysical Research). ...
... Extensive harvesting of the species since the early 17th century limits the ages of modern living AWC chronologies to the late 18th century (Hopton and Pederson, 2005;Pearl et al., 2017). Investigations of the climate sensitivity of the species have shown that AWC ring width is significantly correlated with regional temperatures (Hopton and Pederson, 2005;Pearl et al., 2017), and local hydroclimate in certain coastal geological settings (Pearl et al., in revision at Journal of Geophysical Research). The physical hardiness and climate sensitivity of AWC in the northern extent of its range makes it an optimal species to target for paleoclimate applications. ...
... The majority of modern AWC in the Northeast are significantly correlated with temperature in their tree-ring width (Pearl et al., 2017. The climate sensitivity of living AWC ring-width south of 41 N however is often low for both precipitation and temperature (Hopton and Pederson, 2005;Pearl et al., 2017Pearl et al., , 2019; thus, for paleoclimate applications, the AWC stands in the northernmost extent of the species' range are preferred. ...
Tree-rings provide precise annually dated climate information, but their application can be limited by the relatively short lifespan of many trees. To overcome this limitation, tree-ring records can be extended over longer time periods by connecting living trees with older “sub-fossil” trees, which can provide information on longer timescales throughout the Holocene. These long chronologies are proxy records of past climate, provide precise chronological information for extreme events, and give insight into the range of natural climate variability prior to the instrumental period. In the densely populated northeastern United States, few tree-ring records are longer than 500 years, and there are no millennial-length tree-ring chronologies for the region. Here, we use a combination of standard dendrochronological and radiocarbon techniques, including use of the 774 CE radiocarbon excursion, to generate an absolutely dated 2500 year-long tree ring record from living, archaeological, and subfossil Atlantic white cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides) found in the coastal northeastern United States. Our chronology demonstrates the potential to develop multi-millennial Chamaecyparis thyoides tree-ring records to address previously unanswered questions regarding late Holocene hydroclimate, extreme events, and temperature variability in New England.
... Laderman, 1989;Motzkin, 1990;NHESP, 2007;Kelsey et al., 2011). AWC has previously seen limited use for climate reconstructions, with recent work showing that in the northern extent of the species' range, reliable access to fresh water results in a positive growth response to temperature (Hopton & Pederson, 2005;Pearl et al., 2017). AWC therefore appears to be unique among Northeast species since it can be used to skillfully reconstruct temperatures across New England based on the widths of its annual rings (Hopton & Pederson, 2005;Pearl et al., 2017;Pederson et al., 2004b). ...
... AWC has previously seen limited use for climate reconstructions, with recent work showing that in the northern extent of the species' range, reliable access to fresh water results in a positive growth response to temperature (Hopton & Pederson, 2005;Pearl et al., 2017). AWC therefore appears to be unique among Northeast species since it can be used to skillfully reconstruct temperatures across New England based on the widths of its annual rings (Hopton & Pederson, 2005;Pearl et al., 2017;Pederson et al., 2004b). This temperature sensitivity is in contrast to Taxodium distichum (L.) Rich., a wetland tree species of the Gulf of Mexico and mid-Atlantic coast, which, despite its similar wetland habitat, has a significant relationship with spring-summer precipitation (D. ...
... We sampled 34 AWC sites throughout the Northeast between 2014 and 2017 ( Figure 1). Six of these sites (Sites 2,3,17,19,21,and 24 in Table 1) were recollections of sites sampled by Hopton and Pederson (2005), and 28 sites are collections of previously unsampled AWC forests. Twenty-four sites north of 41 • N with at least 100 years of tree-ring data were retained for paleoclimate analysis and reconstruction (Table 1) based on the latitudinal pattern of climate sensitivity identified by Hopton andPederson (2005) andPearl et al. (2017). ...
High‐resolution paleoclimate records are essential for improving our understanding of internal variability and the detection and attribution of forced climate system responses. The densely populated northeastern United States is at risk from increasing temperatures, severe droughts, and extreme precipitation, but the region has limited annual and seasonal‐resolution paleoclimate records beyond the instrumental record. Chamaecyparis thyoides, L. (B.S.P.), Atlantic white cedar, a wetland conifer found within 200 km of the Atlantic coastline of the United States, is a promising tree‐ring proxy that can fill in these data gaps. Here, we develop and analyze a new network of Atlantic white cedar tree‐ring chronologies across the northeastern United States and demonstrate that site selection is important for regional paleoclimate reconstructions. Ring width variability reflects winter through summer temperatures at inland and hydrologically stable sites in the northernmost section of the species' range. Ombrotrophic sites along the coast record hydrological signals and correlate with growing season precipitation. We demonstrate skillful regional climate field reconstructions for the last several centuries and show the increased skill from incorporating our moisture sensitive sites into broad‐scale products like the North American Drought Atlas. This comprehensive understanding of the species' climate responses leads to a tree‐ring network that provides the long‐term multivariate climate context at multidecadal and centennial time scales for the large‐scale ocean‐atmospheric processes that influence the climate of the region. We use this network to examine the covariance of temperature and drought across the New England area over the past two centuries.
... The most recent reconstruction is based on Chamaecyparis thyoides (L.) B.S.P. (Atlantic white cedar; Pearl et al., 2017). Although both Picea rubens and Chamaecyparis thyoides have strong temperature responses (Conkey, 1986;Hopton and Pederson, 2005;Pearl et al., 2017), each species has limitations for reconstructing past temperatures. Growth of Picea rubens over the latter portion of the twentieth century, a period key to model validation, has been influenced by atmospheric pollutants (Johnson et al., 1988;Cook and Johnson, 1989;Mathias and Thomas, 2018) and affected the climate response of this species; its growth has recovered in recent decades (Kosiba et al., 2017). ...
... Growth of Picea rubens over the latter portion of the twentieth century, a period key to model validation, has been influenced by atmospheric pollutants (Johnson et al., 1988;Cook and Johnson, 1989;Mathias and Thomas, 2018) and affected the climate response of this species; its growth has recovered in recent decades (Kosiba et al., 2017). The high commercial value of Chamaecyparis thyoides as a timber species limits its common maximum age to <150 yr across most of the landscape (Hopton and Pederson, 2005;Pearl et al., 2017). Additionally, Chamaecyparis thyoides loses its positive relation to temperature south of 41°N, restricting reconstructions to the poleward extent of the eastern United States (Pearl et al., 2017), and is located in more coastal regions (Laderman, 1989), which might inhibit its representativeness of past temperatures in more inland regions. ...
... Prior reconstructions in the northeastern United States included winter and spring temperatures (Conkey, 1986;Pearl et al., 2017). Previous work in the region identified that multiple species have a positive correlation to non-growing-season temperatures (Cook and Cole, 1991;Pederson et al., 2004;Hopton and Pederson, 2005;Cook and Pederson, 2011;Martin-Benito and Pederson, 2015). Based on this evidence, we focused our investigation on the cool season (January-April) to complement the previous reconstructions based on Picea rubens and Chamaecyparis thyoides. ...
Tree-ring reconstructions of temperature often target trees at altitudinal or latitudinal tree line where annual growth is broadly expected to be limited by and respond to temperature variability. Based on this principal, regions with sparse tree line would seem to be restricted in their potential to reconstruct past temperatures. In the northeastern United States, there are only two published temperature reconstructions. Previous work in the region reconstructing moisture availability, however, has shown that using a greater diversity of species can improve reconstruction model skill. Here, we use a network of 228 tree-ring records composed of 29 species to test the hypothesis that an increase in species diversity among the pool of predictors improves reconstructions of past temperatures. Chamaecyparis thyoides alone explained 31% of the variability in observed cool-season minimum temperatures, but a multispecies model increased the explained variance to 44%. Liriodendron tulipifera , a species not previously used for temperature reconstructions, explained a similar amount of variance as Chamaecyparis thyoides (12.9% and 20.8%, respectively). Increasing the species diversity of tree proxies has the potential for improving reconstruction of paleotemperatures in regions lacking latitudinal or elevational tree lines provided that long-lived hardwood records can be located.
... The color of the circle reflects the Pearson correlation coefficient (r) between ring width and local average January through August temperature from the nearest grid points from the GISTEMP temperature product (Hansen et al 2010). Updated and recollected sites Appleton, ME (APB), Saco Heath, ME (SAC), and Westminster, MA (WMS) used for our reconstruction are labeled in red (Hopton and Pederson 2005). Green hatching indicates the species distribution as defined by the US Forest Service (Little 1978). ...
... Given the abundant moisture in these forests, AWC growth might a priori be expected to depend less on precipitation and more on temperature (Linderholm et al 2002, Jean andBouchard 1996). Preliminary research by Hopton and Pederson (2005) showed that AWC tree rings contained one of the strongest positive relationships to temperature in the Northeast. However, previous dendroclimatology research with other wetland trees has shown ring-width in those species to have a significant precipitation signal Cleaveland 1992, Stahle et al 2012). ...
... Initial AWC collections at eight sites throughout the Northeast were made between and 2003(Hopton and Pederson 2005. In 2015 we updated and re-sampled three of these locations: Appleton, Maine, Saco Heath, Maine, and Westminster, Massachusetts (figure 1). ...
Our knowledge of climate variability in the densely populated Northeastern United States is limited to instrumental data of the last century. Most regional paleoclimate proxies reflect a mix of climate responses, which makes reconstructing historical climate a challenge. Here we analyze tree-ring chronologies from Atlantic white cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides) as a potential regional paleotemperature proxy. We evaluate our tree-ring network for spatiotemporal climate signal strength and reconstruction skill across New England. Atlantic white cedar sites in the northern section of the species' range exhibit positive significant annual growth relationships with local and regional temperatures. Chronologies constructed from northern sites yield skillful reconstructions of temperature that reproduce centennial, multidecadal, and interannual variability in the instrumental record, providing a novel paleotemperature record for New England.
... The current study found a positive association between previous August mean temperature and T. occidentalis growth. The positive relationship between previous summer temperatures and growth has been observed in other conifers, including Chamaecyparis thyoides L. (Atlantic white cedar) (Hopton and Pederson 2003;Henderson and Grissino-Mayer 2009). Moderate temperatures and abundant precipitation late in the growing season may be favorable for T. occidentalis growth in the central Appalachian Mountains; however, the association between growth and temperature is not constant throughout the year. ...
Background
Information on forest structure, growth, and disturbance history is essential for effective forest management in a dynamic landscape. Because most of our research concerning the ecology and growth of Thuja occidentalis comes from sites in northern portions of its range, highly contextual biotic and abiotic factors that affect the species in more southern locales may not be fully accounted for. This research characterized the structural attributes and growth dynamics of Thuja occidentalis in disjunct forest stands south of its contiguous range margin.
Methods
The Thuja occidentalis forests examined in this research were located in the central Appalachian Mountains, USA, approximately 440 km south of the contiguous range margin of the species. Forest structural attributes were characterized in two Thuja occidentalis forest stands, which are rare in the region. Tree-ring chronologies were used to examine the influences of disturbance and climate on the growth of Thuja occidentalis.
Results
The forests contained a total of 13 tree species with Thuja occidentalis contributing substantially to the basal area of the sites. Thuja occidentalis stems were absent in the smallest size class, while hardwood species were abundant in the smallest classes. Thuja occidentalis stems also were absent from the
