Competition alters tree growth responses to climate at individual and stand scales

Understanding how climate affects tree growth is essential for assessing climate change impacts on forests but can be confounded by effects of competition, which strongly influences tree responses to climate. We characterized the joint influences of tree size, competition, and climate on diameter growth using hierarchical Bayesian methods applied to permanent sample plot data from the montane forests of Mount Rainier National Park, Washington State, USA, which are mostly comprised of Abies amabilis Douglas ex Forbes, Tsuga heterophylla (Raf.) Sarg., Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco, and Thuja plicata Donn ex D. Don. Individual growth was sensitive to climate under low but not high competition, likely because tree ability to increase growth under more favorable climates (generally greater energy availability) was constrained by competition, with important variation among species. Thus, climate change will likely increase individual growth most in uncrowded stands with lower competition. However, crowde...

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