ArticleNature communications2023
Increasing atmospheric dryness reduces boreal forest tree growth.
Article in Nature communications, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 76 citations in OpenAlex.
- Assessing Future Maladaptation Risk in the Keystone SpeciesEvolutionary applications · 2026Article
- Increasing risk of vapor pressure deficit exceeding critical thresholds for tree growth.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Impacts of Atmospheric and Soil Droughts on Carbon and Water Fluxes in Northern European Coniferous Forests: Evidence From Eddy-Covariance Data.Global change biology · 2026Article
- Frequency-dependent climate sensitivity of sub-daily radial growth of tree stems at the dry Arctic treeline.Tree physiology · 2026Article
- Contrasting foliar nitrogen nutrition of coexisting temperate and boreal trees across a modest temperature cline.Fundamental research · 2026Article
- Single-cell transcriptomics reveals cellular and genetic mechanisms of alpine adaptation inFrontiers in plant science · 2026Article
- Article
- A climate- and stage-sensitive stand growth and yield model of naturalFrontiers in plant science · 2026Article
- Global dependency of canopy height on vapour pressure deficit and its projections under climate change.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Unexpected Large Photosynthetic Thermal Plasticity of Montane Andean Trees.Global change biology · 2025Article
- Permafrost instability negates the positive impact of warming temperatures on boreal radial growth.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Tree growth rate-mediated trade-off between drought resistance and recovery in the Northern Hemisphere.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Increasing atmospheric dryness reduces boreal forest tree growth.Nature communications · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 5 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Rising atmospheric vapour pressure deficit (VPD) associated with climate change affects boreal forest growth via stomatal closure and soil dryness. However, the relationship between VPD and forest growth depends on the climatic context. Here we assess Canadian boreal forest responses to VPD changes from 1951-2018 using a well-replicated tree-growth increment network with approximately 5,000 species-site combinations. Of the 3,559 successful growth models, we observed a relationship between growth and concurrent summer VPD in one-third of the species-site combinations, and between growth and prior summer VPD in almost half of those combinations. The relationship between previous year VPD and current year growth was almost exclusively negative, while current year VPD also tended to reduce growth. Tree species, age, annual temperature, and soil moisture primarily determined tree VPD responses. Younger trees and species like white spruce and Douglas fir exhibited higher VPD sensitivity, as did areas with high annual temperature and low soil moisture. Since 1951, summer VPD increases in Canada have paralleled tree growth decreases, particularly in spruce species. Accelerating atmospheric dryness in the decades ahead will impair carbon storage and societal-economic services.
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