Multi-Scale Drivers of Riparian Forest Decline Along a Mediterranean-Climate River

Variation in water availability is a major driver of ecological communities and ecosystem health in riverine and riparian ecosystems, particularly in Mediterranean and other semi-arid regions. Competition for water resources from humans has stressed these ecosystems worldwide, and population growth, land use and climate change threaten to further impair already vulnerable ecological communities. In riparian zones, there is a need to develop tools to measure these impacts on the key biological and physical processes that sustain ecosystem health and potential recovery. We used dendrochronology of Populus nigra, a riparian tree that is vulnerable to changes in local hydrology, to analyze ecosystem response following gravel mining along the Drôme River, a Mediterranean-climate stream in southern France. We cored trees (N=55) at seven floodplain sites, measured ring widths, and calculated site-based indices of growth to compare the severity and timing of local growth decline along the river. Results indicate that tree growth has declined at some sites coincident with documented channel incision, and that patterns of low growth and crown dieback are consistent with stress due to reduced water supply. Sites varied significantly in recent tree growth rate (F6,34=3.55, p<0.01) and this was not due to tree age, individual size at an early age, or stand density. The site-based, age-corrected index of recent radial growth varied 5-fold between sites (range 0.5±0.08 to 2.3±0.60 unitless growth index, mean 1±SE). Growth index was negatively correlated with proportion of dead crown (r = -0.71), though the relationship was non-linear, with low growth for the three sites that experienced the greatest crown dieback. Regime Shift Detection analysis of site chronologies showed significant sustained growth decline (p<0.05) at four sites after 1980, following the period of intensive instream mining downstream. Site growth declines were not simultaneous, however, nor sequenced in a spatial and temporal pattern consistent with progressive longitudinal streambed degradation and associated local groundwater lowering. Instead, site growth declines were initiated in years of meteorological droughts that occurred after (but never prior to) the mining period, and were spatially distributed to suggest local bedrock controls on soil depth. Results indicate that these semi-arid systems are vulnerable to multiple physical drivers, but that the severity of impacts is conditioned by interactions between drivers at different scales, including regional climate variability, reach-based hydrogeomorphic alteration, and local lithological controls.