I did this with Box Turtles, published in Amphibia Reptilia.
M
On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 2:17 PM, Jacob Cecile <[email protected]> wrote:
> I think it might be helpful to look at dendrochronology here. Ring width
> (and therefore diameter growth) is commonly used to infer climate-growth
> patterns of tree growth.
>
> That said, Wayne and Dev bring up a number of relevant points:
>
> 1. Time scale: years or decades of data are needed to get a reasonable
> picture of climate response. Fortunately, tree rings can extend your
> records back until the birth of the trees at relatively low cost.
> 2. Microclimate: this is often an important consideration, especially in
> topographically diverse habitats. Ideally this is controlled for during
> sample collection but you might be able to include it as a predictor
> variable.
> 3. Site-level factors affecting growth: like Wayne says, a great number
> of non-climatic factors (esp. fertility) influence tree growth. As a
> result, it's much more helpful to examine year-to-year response to climate,
> whether you're looking at height or diameter.
> 4. Age has an extremely strong effect on diameter and height, as well as
> their rate of change. This needs to be controlled for, either by using a
> published age-growth equation, or via standardization. Dendrochronology has
> a long history of controlling for age-related effects using detrending
> curves or regional curve standardization (which identifies and remove
> common age-related effects). If you have a long enough record of growth,
> these techniques could likely be adapted to DBH measurements.
>
> The one final caution, make sure to include climate covariates and look
> beyond linear responses.
>
> -Jacob
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 1:05 PM, Thomas J. Givnish <[email protected]
>> wrote:
>
>> While in general I concur with Wayne's view that "all kinds" of site
>> variables can affect tree height and dbh - most meaningfully, asymptotic
>> tree height - I disagree with the flip statement that "mean annual anything
>> as independent variables are next to worthless". My colleagues and I have a
>> paper we are about to submit that predicts max tree height from two "mean
>> anything" environmental variables over a 600-km transect with an r2 = 0.88.
>> That is NOT "next to worthless".
>>
>> Thomas J. Givnish
>> Henry Allan Gleason Professor of Botany
>> University of Wisconsin
>>
>> [email protected]
>> http://botany.wisc.edu/givnish/Givnish/Welcome.html
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 03/08/13, Wayne Tyson wrote:
>> > Dev (and Ecolog):
>> >
>> > Climate is highly variable from place-to-place, even in the "same"
>> location, and "all kinds" of site variables can affect tree height and dbh
>> (not to mention age). Mean annual anything as independent variables are
>> next to worthless (or worse, misleading) unless you have years, decades, to
>> devote to the project (and even then they are very questionable), largely
>> because such variable can vary too much from year to year. DBH is a very
>> crude measure, and cores are also crude (except for the single tree being
>> cored).
>> >
>> > I must be missing something if this is the way "most contemporary
>> studies" are done. I hope someone can point out the errors of my thinking.
>> >
>> > WT
>> >
>> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "D Chakraborty" <[email protected]>
>> > To: <[email protected]>
>> > Sent: Friday, March 08, 2013 5:51 AM
>> > Subject: [ECOLOG-L] need help
>> >
>> >
>> > Dear Colleagues
>> > I am working on developing growth response functions to investigate the
>> > effects of climate on growth performance of Douglas fir provenances. Most
>> > of the contemporary studies use multivariate models with tree height at
>> > specific age as dependent variable and climate parameters(eg. Mean annual
>> > temperature, degree days , Annual heat mositure index etc) as independent
>> > variable.
>> >
>> > We all know that tree height is least influenced by management and
>> > therefore its most logical to use tree height as the dependent variable.
>> > However in my case I have very little tree height data.
>> >
>> > In this circumstance I am looking for your valuable opinion that can
>> > justify the use of DBH as a dependent variable.
>> >
>> > Looking forward to hearing from you.
>> > best regards
>> > Dev
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Debojyoti Chakraborty
>> > Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
>> > Department of forest and soil sciences, Universität für Bodenkultur Wien
>> > Ph: Vienna +43 6764871296 (m)
>> >
>> > Lecturer, Amity Institute of Global Warming and Ecological Studies
>> > Amity University campus, Block D, II floor,Sector 125, NOIDA
>> > India www.amity.edu/aigwes
>> > India +919868001750 (M India), 01204392562 (O) 0120-4392606 (Fax)
>> > alternate email id: [email protected], [email protected]
>> > skype: d-chakraborty
>> >
>> >
>> > -----
>> > No virus found in this message.
>> > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
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>> --
>>
--
Malcolm L. McCallum
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School of Biological Sciences
University of Missouri at Kansas City
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