ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. For. Glob. Change
Sec. Forest Growth
Volume 8 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/ffgc.2025.1581222
This article is part of the Research TopicForest Growth in a Changing Climate: Insights from Predictive Modeling and Adaptive StrategiesView all 8 articles
Radial growth projections reveal site-specific futures of different oak species with contrasting water availability in SW Hungary
Provisionally accepted
Norbert Móricz1*
Ilona Mészáros2
Gábor Zoltán Illés1Balázs Garamszegi3
Csaba Béla Eötvös1Anikó Kern4,5Anikó Hirka1Imre Berki6Attila Borovics1Roland Hollós7Tamás Márton Németh1- 1University of Sopron, Sopron, Hungary
- 2University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hajdu-Bihar, Hungary
- 3University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- 4Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
- 5Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Prague, Prague, Czechia
- 6unaffiliated, Sopron, Hungary
- 7HUN-REN Centre for Agricultural Research (HUN-REN CAR), Martonvásár, Hungary
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The growth and vitality of forest ecosystems in Central Europe are expected to be affected by climate change, posing a challenge for forest management. In this study, we examined and projected the relationship between growth and climate for dominant sessile oak (Quercus petraea (Matt.) Liebl.) and Turkey oak (Quercus cerris L.) trees in two sites in Hungary, each with different water availability. We developed a single linear mixed model based on tree age, climatic water balance and insect outbreak for the study period (1971-2021) to estimate the impact of projected climate change in the 21st century on basal area increments until 2100 using two climate scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). Our study suggests that the growth response of oak species to different seasonal water balances is site and species-specific. We found that the water balance of the previous winter had a significantly greater influence on the growth in the stands of the dry site than in the stands of the wet site. Q. cerris reacted more sensitively to the water balance conditions of the previous summer than Q. petraea. Predictive models forecast a general growth decline of up to 10.8% for both oak species during the 21st century compared to past growth with a significant change according to the RCP8.5 scenario. Additionally, the models predict a significantly greater decrease in growth in the more humid site compared to the xeric site which could be attributed to the site-specific response of growth to the winter water balance. At the same time, we did not detect significant differences in the future growth of the two oak species These findings provide insights into the climate-related factors influencing growth in Hungarian oak forests.
Keywords: mixed models, Dendroecology, Basal area increment, Climate Change, Quercus cerris, Quercus petraea
Received: 21 Feb 2025; Accepted: 23 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Móricz, Mészáros, Illés, Garamszegi, Eötvös, Kern, Hirka, Berki, Borovics, Hollós and Németh. 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: Norbert Móricz, University of Sopron, Sopron, Hungary
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.