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Quarantining the Sahara desert: growth and water-use efficiency of Aleppo pine in the Algerian Green Barrier

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Abstract

The Algerian Green Barrier, mainly composed of native and artificial Aleppo pine forests, spreads along the pre-Saharan steppes and is threatened by anthropogenic and natural disturbances, including climate change. We hypothesized that the ecophysiological functioning of this conifer has been substantially modified in reaction to recent warming and drought much beyond the expected effect of CO2 fertilization. Our aim was to characterize the long-term performance (1925–2013) of native Aleppo pines thriving at their southernmost distribution. We used tree-ring width (TRW) and carbon isotope discrimination (Δ13C) to characterize basal area increment (BAI) and intrinsic water-use efficiency (WUEi) at three sites. BAI remained stable or slightly increased over time, with mean values ranging between 4.0 and 6.3 cm2 year−1. Conversely, site-Δ13C decreased from −0.022 to −0.014‰ year−1 along time, which translated into WUEi increases of ca. 39%. This strong physiological reaction indicated that pines were responding simultaneously to rising CO2 and drier conditions, inducing a progressively tighter stomatal control of water losses. However, WUEi increments were essentially unrelated to BAI and did not affect carbon reserves, which suggests a high resilience to climate change. This finding could be due to shifts in growing season towards earlier months in winter–spring, as suggested by temporal changes in climate factors underlying Δ13C and TRW. Our study highlights the substantial plasticity of Aleppo pine, but this species is unlikely to follow a similar pace of ecophysiological adjustments according to unprecedented low Δ13C records and lack of WUEi stimulation observed from 2000 onwards.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency (Project ALG5028) to H. Himrane and of the Spanish project FUTURPIN (AGL2015–68274–C3–3–R) to J. Voltas. We also acknowledge funding provided by the US National Science Foundation, Earth System History (Award No. 0317288) and Paleo Perspectives on Climate Change (Award No. 1103314). An earlier version of this work was presented by Z. Choury to obtain a MSc degree in the Erasmus Mundus Programme MEDfOR. T.A. Shestakova is supported by ERANET-Mundus (European Commission). We remain indebted to P. Sopeña and M.J. Pau for technical assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Crop and Forest Sciences – AGROTECNIO Center, University of Lleida, Alcalde Rovira Roure 191, 25198, Lleida, Spain

    Zineb Choury & Jordi Voltas

  2. Department of Ecology, University of Barcelona, 08028, Barcelona, Spain

    Tatiana A. Shestakova

  3. Institute National de Recherche Forestière, Arboretum de Bainem, B.P. 37, Cheraga, Algeria

    Hocine Himrane

  4. Laboratory of Tree Ring Research, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA

    Ramzi Touchan

  5. Institute of Veterinary and Agronomy Sciences, The University Hadj-Lakhdar, 05000, Batna, Algeria

    Dalila Kherchouche

  6. Pyrenean Institute of Ecology, IPE–CSIC, 50059, Saragossa, Spain

    J. Julio Camarero

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  1. Zineb Choury
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  2. Tatiana A. Shestakova
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  3. Hocine Himrane
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  6. J. Julio Camarero
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  7. Jordi Voltas
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Choury, Z., Shestakova, T.A., Himrane, H. et al. Quarantining the Sahara desert: growth and water-use efficiency of Aleppo pine in the Algerian Green Barrier. Eur J Forest Res 136, 139–152 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-016-1014-3

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