A Dual Stable Isotope Approach Unravels Common Climate Signals and 
Species-Specific Responses to Environmental Change Stored in Multi-Century 
Tree-Ring Series from the Tibetan Plateau

Grießinger, Jussi; Bräuning, Achim; Helle, G.; Schleser, Gerhard; Hochreuther, Philipp; Meier, Wolfgang; Zhu, Haifeng

doi:10.3390/geosciences9040151

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A Dual Stable Isotope Approach Unravels Common Climate Signals and Species-Specific Responses to Environmental Change Stored in Multi-Century Tree-Ring Series from the Tibetan Plateau

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Grießinger, Jussi
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Bräuning, Achim
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Helle, G.
4.3 Climate Dynamics and Landscape Evolution, 4.0 Geosystems, Departments, GFZ Publication Database, Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum;

Schleser, Gerhard
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Hochreuther, Philipp
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Meier, Wolfgang
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Zhu, Haifeng
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Citation

Grießinger, J., Bräuning, A., Helle, G., Schleser, G., Hochreuther, P., Meier, W., Zhu, H. (2019): A Dual Stable Isotope Approach Unravels Common Climate Signals and Species-Specific Responses to Environmental Change Stored in Multi-Century Tree-Ring Series from the Tibetan Plateau. - Geosciences, 9, 4, 151.
https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences9040151

Cite as: https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_4199894

Abstract

Tree-rings are recorders of environmental signals and are therefore often used to reconstruct past environmental conditions. In this paper, we present four annually resolved, multi-centennial tree-ring isotope series from the southeastern Tibetan plateau. The investigation site, where juniper and spruce trees jointly occur, is one of the highest known tree-stands in the world. Tree ring cellulose oxygen (δ18O) and carbon (δ13C) isotopes were analyzed for a common period of 1685–2007 AD to investigate climate–isotope relationships. Therefore, various climate parameters from a local meteorological station and from the CRU 4.02 dataset were used. Tree-ring δ18O of both species revealed highly significant sensitivities with a high degree of coherence to hydroclimate variables during the growing season. The obtained δ18O–climate relationships can even be retained using a species mean. In contrast, the individual δ13C series indicated a weaker and non-uniform response to the tested variables. Underlying species-specific responses and adaptations to the long-term trend in atmospheric CO2 bias even after a trend correction identified dominant environmental factors triggering the tree-ring δ13C at our site. However, analysis of individual intrinsic water-use efficiency in juniper and spruce trees indicated a species-specific adaptation strategy to climate change.