YunForest: Growth and physiological responses of forests to climate change along latitudinal and altitudinal gradients in Southwest China (Yunnan Province)

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During the recent decades, the topographically complex province of Yunnan in southwest China experienced substantial trends of increasing temperatures, accompanied by an increasing number of precipitation failures. This may challenge the sustainability of forest ecosystem services like carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation. The project YunForest evaluates the effects of a changing climate to the adaptation of natural and anthropogenic forest ecosystems in three elevation transects along a south-north climatic gradient in the tropical, subtropical and temperate climate zones of Yunnan. In an interdisciplinary study, we will use different wood anatomical parameters/features and tree physiological information derived from analyses of stable oxygen and carbon isotopes in tree-ring cellulose to quantify forest growth and tree species’ response to changes in regional hydroclimate. Multicentennial climate variability along the Mekong river system will be reconstructed using a multi-tree-ring parameter approach. Extreme precipitation events will be analyzed along the studied gradients by analyzing their oxygen isotope composition and calculating the origin of the air masses by trajectory analyses. This will allow modelling of stable oxygen fractionation along atmosphere travel pathways and linkage to intra-annual distribution of oxygen isotopes in tree rings.