Abstract

POMPA-GARCIA, Marín et al. Climatic sensibility of three dendrochronological indexes for a Mexican conifer. Madera bosques [online]. 2014, vol.20, n.3, pp.139-151. ISSN 2448-7597.

Recent studies have suggested that climatic variations may have implications on ecosystem biogeography. Dendrochronological techniques constitute a useful tool to analyze relationships tree growth-climate. Ring widths usually are standardized before the analysis in order to remove unwanted bias due to individual growth related to stem size and age. This approach produces rings widths indices while retaining climatic signals that are in common among trees into a single chronology. However, in dendroclimatology few papers show their sensitive capacity. As a result its use could be becomes routine practice without considering their implications. The aim of this work was to assess the climate sensitivity responses of three chronologies indexes of Pinus cooperi: Standard (Sd), Residual (Rd), and Arstan. Such series were correlated with historical records of precipitation, temperature and two index El Niño-Southern Oscillation ENSO (Niño3 and MEI). The three chronologies showed similar trends during previous growing months (August to December). Nevertheless, Rd was better associated with current growing months, but showed weaker correlation with ENSO. Comparatively Sd and Ar demonstrated stronger sensibility to large-scale climatic patterns in previous growing months. It is concluded that appropriate selection of dendrochronology index is important, indicating repercussions on climatic scenarios. Neither should be considered substitutes for each other. Combining them with complementary tools would improve the sensitivity capacity of ecological processes in the forest.

Keywords : Tree rings; biogeography; Durango; standardization; Pinus cooperi.

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