ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Functional Plant Ecology
This article is part of the Research TopicUnraveling the effects of extreme climate events on forest dynamics: Patterns, processes, and mechanismsView all articles
Climate warming induced pervasive growth decline in Chinese pine populations of the Loess Plateau, China
Provisionally accepted
Zongshan Li1
Cong Wang1
Guangyao Gao1
Xiaoming Feng1
Yihe Lv1
Xiaochun Wang2
Qindi Zhang3
Haibin Liang4Xiaojuan Zhang5Yue Guo5
Jianbo Liu6*- 1Research Center for Eco-environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, China
- 2Northeast Forestry University College of Forestry, Harbin, China
- 3Shanxi Normal University, Taiyuan, China
- 4Taiyuan Normal University, Taiyuan, China
- 5Ordos International Technological Innovation Center for Desertification Control, Ordos, China
- 6Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
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Modern warming and associated aridification have intensified forest growth decline and tree mortality, weakening forest carbon sequestration. Here we synthesize tree-ring width chronologies from 60 Chinese pine (Pinus tabuliformis Carr.) sites spanning major geomorphological units of the Loess Plateau, and compare climate–growth relationships before (1901–1960) and after (1961–2012) the rapid warming around 1960. Before 1960, warming and drying were not pronounced; radial growth generally increased across regions, with growth primarily limited by moisture availability and temperature exerting a modest stimulatory effect. After 1960, warming and aridification strengthened markedly, and Chinese pine growth declined across all geomorphological units. Moisture limitation became substantially stronger, while higher temperatures shifted from a weak benefit to a clear suppressive influence on growth. Growth sensitivity to warming also varied spatially: chronologies from the southern Loess Plateau showed the strongest sensitivity, with both growing-and non-growing-season climate significantly affecting growth. In contrast, chronologies from the western and eastern Loess Plateau were less sensitive, with growth responses dominated mainly by non-growing-season climate conditions. The tree-ring chronology dataset built in the Loess Plateau could improve understanding of spatially heterogeneous forest growth responses to recent warm–dry trends in this region, and guide adaptive forest management to sustain ecosystem functioning under ongoing aridification of the Loess Plateau.
Keywords: Chinese pine forests, Climatic warming, radial growth, The Loess Plateau, Tree rings
Received: 19 Nov 2025; Accepted: 22 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Li, Wang, Gao, Feng, Lv, Wang, Zhang, Liang, Zhang, Guo and Liu. 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: Jianbo Liu
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