10th World Dendro Conference

Forest Inventories and the Study of Global Change

Session Chairs.

Dr. Margaret Evens; LTRR, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA

Dr. Neil Pederson; Harvard Forest, Petersham, Mass., USA

Session Description:

Forests contribute to roughly 40% of the annual global carbon sink. Critical questions at this juncture of the Anthropocene regarding the terrestrial carbon sink are, ‘What are the drivers of terrestrial carbon sequestration?’ and ‘How will these systems respond to global change?’ Tree rings have the potential to determine not only the trends of the forest carbon sink in recent decades, but also the drivers of the variability of this sink from seasonal to centennial time scales. Quantifying the drivers and variability of the forest carbon sink from tree rings, however, is still in its infancy and sorting out the possibilities from the limitations of using tree rings is fundamental to the use of dendrochronology as a proxy for addressing the global carbon sink. As we have done throughout the history of dendrochronology, we depend on other measurements of forest growth, thus, for this session, we welcome any studies addressing the terrestrial carbon sink using tree-ring data alone or in combination with or comparison against satellite, forest inventory, or eddy-flux measures of forest growth. Further we welcome expansions of the traditional dendro toolbox that consider multiple drivers of tree growth simultaneously (sensu the linear aggregate model), that model absolute rather than only relative growth, that integrate tree-ring data into process-based models of tree growth or vegetation dynamics, that address the challenges of using long time series with a fading record of stand dynamics, and that link growth and mortality processes via tree-ring data.

Mountain Dendrochronology

Session Chairs:

Dr. Peng Zhang; Climate Prediction Lab., Chonnam National University, Gwangju, Korea

Dr. Olga Solomina; Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

Dr. Hans Linderholm; GULD, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

Session Description:

Mountain environments are particularly sensitive to climate change, and mountain ecosystems can be severely and rapidly affected by changes in temperature and precipitation patterns. Many mountain environments have experienced a higher rate of warming than the global average in the last century. Given the general lack of observational data and environmental indicators from, especially, high-elevation areas, trees can provide highly important information about past conditions as well as act as indicators of ongoing climate change. This session focuses on various aspects of tree-ring research in mountain areas. We welcome papers presenting investigations conducted in mountain environments, including, but not limited to, climate reconstructions, impact studies on both natural and human systems, tree-line dynamics, dendrogeomorphological and dendroglaciological investigations.

DendroClimatology

Session Chairs:

Dr. Valerie Trouet, LTRR, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA

Dr. Rob Wilson; School of Earth & Environmental Sciences, St. Andrews University, St. Andrews, Scotland

Session Description:

Ongoing and projected future climatic change at global and regional scale raises questions about anthropogenic forcing of the climate system and the amplitude of its response. To improve our understanding of the climate system’s sensitivity and its natural variability, a longer time frame than instrumental data alone can offer is required. Moreover, knowledge of pre-industrial climate conditions is important to distinguish between anthropogenic and natural (e.g., volcanic, internal) drivers of climate variability. Proxy climate records have therefore been developed to reconstruct past climate at a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. Tree-ring records are often the most prevalent and reliable proxies over the recent past and their annual resolution is necessary to study extreme events in past climate. The Dendroclimatology session(s) welcomes papers that use tree-ring data to study any aspects of past climate and its influence on human systems and ecosystems.

DendroHydrology

Session Chairs:

Dr. Santosh Shah, Birbal Sahni Inst. of Paleosciences, Lucknow, India

Dr. Ulf Buentgen; University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Session Description:

Dendrohydrology aids in studying long-term, hydrologic phenomena based on tree growth hydroclimatic reconstructions at local to regional scales. It is focused on river and stream flow reconstruction beyond the existing gauge record. The long-term flow reconstructions helps management and planning of various water resources. In addition to extensions of gauge flow records, its application also includes drought analysis, analysis of extremes and periodicity of rare hydrologic phenomena. In the recent decade methodology of discharge reconstruction has advanced from linear regression to Hierarchical Bayesian Regression and estimation of reconstruction uncertainty through maximum entropy bootstrap.

Tropical Dendrochronology

Session Chairs:

Dr. Jonathan Palmer, School of Bio.Sci., Earth & Env. Sciences, University of New S.Wales, Sydney, Australia

Dr. Laia Andreu Hayles, Tree-ring Lab, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, NY, NY, USA

Session Description:

Tropical dendrochronology is challenging yet the quantity and range of recent publications demonstrates how many of us are willing to engage in this area. The number of species able to be crossdated has expanded, new approaches described and time periods extended. Of particular note has been chronology development in new geographic areas (such as Mozambique). As impressive as all these recent developments have been, the pressing need continues for palaeoclimate data and ecological understanding as tropical ecosystems and socio-economic cultures become more and more vulnerable to extreme climate events, deforestation and population growth. This session seeks to demonstrate the utility and use of tropical trees for providing insights into the tropical environment, global change or human development.

Wood Anatomy and Modelling Wood Formation

Session Chairs:

Dr. Jesper Bjorklund, WSL, Zurich, Switzerland

Dr. Kevin Anchukaitis; LTRR, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA

Session Description:

While the focus of dendrochronology has traditionally been on whole ring metrics, particularly annual ring width, new research avenues have increasingly focused on sub-annual and cellular characteristics. In particular, wood anatomical analyses permit a finer temporal scale understanding on the controls on ring formation, can reveal meteorological influences on xylogenesis, and link tree physiological processes to biological and environmental influences on growth and wood properties. Combined with statistical and mechanistic modeling of these processes and their outcomes, the wealth of information contained in the fine-scale, cellular, and anatomical characteristics of growth rings can be leveraged for a better of understanding of the links between forests and their environment, from the cambium to the biosphere. This session welcomes contributions on all aspects of wood anatomical analysis and modeling, including but not limited to the development of high-resolution, tracheid, subannual, or wood property chronologies, qualitative and quantitative wood anatomy, image analysis and development of new sub-annual proxies, micro-coring techniques and repeated measurements, studies and simulations of xylogenesis and cellular properties, and research using wood anatomy and modeling to understand tree physiology and evolution.

Dendrochronology and Non-traditional Species

Session Chairs:

Dr. Jonathan Palmer, School of Bio.Sci., Earth & Env. Sciences, University of New S.Wales, Sydney, Australia

Dr. Neil Pederson; Harvard Forest, Petersham, Mass., USA

Session Description:

This session is not focussed on trees! Other organisms, such as shrubs and corals, can use dendrochronological principles to provide paleoclimate and paleoecological information in geographic areas where trees are absent. These organisms often survive under more severe environmental conditions beyond treelines at high elevations, at high latitudes, or in deserts and oceans. They thus provide challenging opportunities for extending tree-ring studies into treeless environments. As such, these frontier studies are expanding the dendrochrological footprint of paleoresearch. The session has been popular in past WD conferences and aims to be a platform for sharing pioneering research progress and experiences as well as challenges for the future.

Isotopes and Tree-rings

Session Chairs:

Dr. Laia Andreu-Hayles; TRL-LDEO, Columbia University, NY, USA

Dr. Kevin Anchukaitis; LTRR, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA

Session Description:

The stable isotopic analysis of tree-rings is an increasingly important tool within tree-ring research for understand past climate variability, atmospheric circulation, and plant physiological responses to climate and other environmental variables. In parallel with these developments come new challenges to our mechanistic understanding of isotope fractionation and the methods and application of these techniques. This session will explore the full range of recent developments in isotope dendrochronology including: analytical methods, tree physiology, novel or advanced applications, and isotopic data analysis. We invite talks on topics including the development of new tree-ring isotope records, large-scale data syntheses, methodological and technical advances, mechanistic and modeling studies of isotope systems, and uncertainty quantification.

DendroEcology

Session Chairs:

Dr. Xiaohua Gou; College of Earth and Env. Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China

Dr. Amanda Young; Dept. Geography, Penn State University, University Park, PA, USA

Dr. Neil Pederson; Harvard Forest, Petersham, Mass., USA

Session Description:

Trees are sessile organisms. Their environment, however, is in perpetual motion. To survive the fluctuations that occur over the centuries and millennia, trees have evolved adaptations that allow for their persistence through times of good fortune as well as times of adversity. Over the last century, people have learned to detect and interpret the signals embedded in wood that reflect the changes in a tree’s environment. From these signals, we can answer questions such as, “How do trees respond during times of great environmental variation?”, “What factors impact tree growth and survival?”, and “Do these factors change across locations over time?”, “Are they dependent on a tree’s size or canopy position?”. Answers to questions like these can help us better anticipate how trees, forests, and ecosystems might respond as the global environment continues to change. Forecasts of major environmental changes are clear, but the impacts of these changes on vegetation are not. The session[s] on DendroEcology is open to all studies that show how we use signals embedded in wood to help us better understand the coming changes in the ecology of our world.

Discrete Events and Extremes

Session Chairs:

Dr. Kathy Allen; University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

Dr. Bethany Coulthard; LTRR, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA

Session Description:

Worldwide, there is an increasing interest in the frequency and magnitude of extreme events like fires, floods, landslides, earthquakes, droughts, storms abd forest pest outbreaks. Media coverage and public perception might suggest there have been more such events in the pas tseveral decades or so than ever before, but in the absence of long environmental records, it is impossible to determine whether or not this is really the case. Centennial- or even millennial-length palaeoenvironmental records arevital for testing whether extreme event frequencies, magnitudes and/or durations have been unusual in a long-term context. The rich spatiotemporal information documented in tree-ring records make them exceptional in this regard. we invite presentations for this session that use tree-ring data to evaluate the occurrence of extreme and/or discrete events, including changes in their frequency, severity and/or duration. It is equally critical to acknowledge the limitations of tree-ring records for detecting and analsying such events, and presentations that will discuss these challenges and possible ways forward are also very welcome.

DendroArchaeology

Session Chairs:

Dr. Gretel Boswijk; School of Environment, University of Auckland, Auckland, NZ

Dr. Marta Dominguez Delmas; University of Santiago de Compostela, Dept. Botony, Santiago, Chile

Dr. Kathy Allen; University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

Session Description:

This session highlights current research in dendroarchaeology. Dendroarchaeology is a broad area of research, encompassing chronology development, dating, development of landscapes, and past human use of forest resources, including provenance, trade, and use and reuse of timber on land and sea. We encourage papers addressing any of these topic areas and which present new insights into past societies and human behaviour concerning wood use. Papers presenting new advances in dendroarchaeological methodologies or which are leading research in new regions are also welcomed.

Methodological Innovations in Dendrochronology

Session Chairs:

Dr. Alexander Stine; Dept. Earth & Climate Sciences, San Francisco State University, San Francisco CA. USA

Dr. Rob Wilson; School of Earth & Environmental Sciences, St. Andrews University, St. Andrews, Scotland

Session Description:

Dendrochronology (and its associated sub-fields) is a constantly evolving scientific discipline. Whether the research focus is ecological analyses, historical dating or climate reconstruction, statistical methods employed today have utilised the ever increasing computational power of modern computers allowing the processing and analysis of large data-sets and measurement of physical variables that would simply not have been possibly a few decades ago. As analytical costs have significantly reduced over the last decade, dendrochronology is poised for a golden age of chemical analysis through the utilisation of stable isotopes and trace elements that could open the discipline to a whole new spectrum of environmental analyses. Also, tree-ring data-sets are expanding both spatially and temporally (for example, with the inclusion of historical and sub-fossil material) and extracting useful ecological and climatologically information from heterogeneous data-sets is a significant challenge. We invite papers that detail new statistical, analytical and theoretical methods as well as novel measurements, equipment, and field methods relevant for any sub-discipline in tree-ring research that will continue the development of the science towards the 22nd century.

Proxy/Model Comparisons

Session Chairs:

Dr. Kristina Seftigen; GULD, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

Dr. Kevin Anchukaitis; LTRR, Tucson, Arizona, USA

Session Description:

Extensive networks of tree-ring chronologies allow spatial and temporal reconstructions of climate anomalies at regional to global scales, which are directly comparable with the output of general circulation model simulations. Models and paleoclimate reconstructions form a symbiotic approach to inference and validation in paleoclimate: Models provide the dynamical physical context to interpret reconstructions, while reconstructions provide out-of-sample tests of the skill and usefulness of models. This session focuses on comparisons between large-scale reconstructions of climate fields and general circulation (GCM), regional climate (RCM), and earth system (ESM) Models to understand the role of natural and anthropogenic influences on the climate system, to identify the role of internal variability, and to provide a physically consistent simulated environment in which to evaluate reconstruction techniques using pseudoproxies. We particularly encourage submissions that incorporate forward or mechanistic modeling, apply data assimilation techniques, and/or integrate climate model simulations for interpreting paleoclimate dynamics.

Poster Sessions

Session Chairs:

The Scientific Committee

Session Description:

In addition to the thirteen session topics described above, the 2018 World Dendro Conference will also consider poster submissions under the category of General Dendrochronology. This category of submissions includes titles and content that do not exactly fit within thirteen oral presentation sessions descriptions.