Residual canopy cover provides buffering of near-surface temperatures, but benefits are limited under extreme conditions

Abstract

Increasing summer temperatures and higher probabilities of extreme heat events have led to concerns about tree damage and mortality. However, insufficient attention has been given to conditions leading to heat-related regeneration failures in temperate forests. To address this, managers need to understand how microclimate varies under a range of overstory conditions. We measured air temperatures at 2 cm above-ground underneath a gradient of canopy cover on south-facing slopes in recently thinned Douglas-fir stands in western Oregon, USA. To expand the ecological relevance of these data to impacts on regeneration, we created the stress degree hours (SDH) metric, representing the amount of time—and by how much—temperatures exceeded biologically relevant stress thresholds. Overall, for every 10% increase in canopy cover, maximum temperatures at 2 cm were 1.3 °C lower, the odds of temperatures exceeding stress thresholds for conifer regeneration declined by a multiplicative factor of 0.26, and the total of SDH decreased by 40%. These reductions are large enough to be worthy of attention when managing for tree regeneration. However, data collected during the Pacific Northwest Heat Dome in June 2021 indicate that with various climate change scenarios and heatwave occurrences, temperatures will be unfavorable for regeneration regardless of overstory cover.