ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. For. Glob. Change
Sec. Forest Management
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in Oak Ecology and Silviculture: Challenges and InnovationsView all 3 articles
The impact of an unprecedented hotter drought on oak growth was related to climate of origin
Provisionally accepted
- Instituto Pirenaico de Ecologia, Zaragoza, Spain
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Future forests will have to face compound climate events such as hotter droughts as climate keeps warming. A better understanding of tree growth resilience to such extreme droughts is key to better inform future forests capacity to provide ecosystem services. Arboreta provides a suitable setting to assess the capacity of tree species from different origins to respond to drought under similar climatic conditions. However, the comparison of growth trajectories and growth resilience to drought of arboretum trees are still scarce, particularly for temperate oaks, a major group of trees with remarkable ecological and economical values across the northern Hemisphere. We propose that the comparison of the post-drought growth resilience of oaks co-occurring in an arboretum along with bioclimatic variables, and functional (wood and leaf) traits can help to identify vulnerable species in sight of climate change. To this end, we studied twenty oak species originating from different regions around the world, planted in the Iturrarán botanical garden located in Northern Spain. Dendrochronology was used to calculate growth statistics and resilience indices during the exceptionally hot 2022 drought. These indices were related to: bioclimatic variables, tree diameter, leaf (leaf area, leaf mass per area) and xylem traits (wood density, hydraulic diameter, conductive area, Huber value). Additionally, we calculated drought legacies for eight oak species sampled in the arboretum and in the field. All oak species showed marked growth reductions in the year 2022. Diameter and mean ring width were partially coordinated with leaf traits and wood density since wider rings were observed in species with lower leaf mass per area. Resilience to the 2022 drought was mainly determined by the precipitation of origin of each species. The resilience data of the eight oak species sampled in the arboretum and in the field showed a weak positive but not significant relationship. Our study indicates that trees planted in arboreta contain an informative archive in their ring widths that can help to better classify them in terms of resilience to drought. This is very relevant information which can be used to better preserve and manage temperate oak forests subjected to more arid conditions.
Keywords: arboretum1, Drought2, growth resilience3, Quercus4, Functional Traits5
Received: 22 Oct 2025; Accepted: 24 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Camarero, Valeriano and Gazol. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jesús Julio Camarero
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