Home – Home – Jornals – Contemporary Problems of Ecology 2022 number 2

In this work, a dendroecological study of the parameters of annual rings of Scots pine ( Pinus sylvestris L.) trees in the forest-steppe and steppe zones of Eastern Transbaikalia was carried out. For the first time, two new tree-ring chronologies (Nov and Tz) were built for the study area. They were constructed using digital growth ring anatomy methods and include four parameters: tree ring width, early wood width, late wood width, and late wood optical density. The analysis of the obtained chronologies made it possible to estimate the parameters of tree growth in the conditions of the forest-steppe (Nov) and steppe (Tz) zones and to reveal the presence of a reliable connection between them. Calculation of sliding correlation coefficients revealed periods of falling correlation coefficients below reliable values. This indicates the impossibility of constructing a generalized regional chronology for the forest-steppe and steppe zones of Eastern Transbaikalia. Comparison of the obtained chronologies with meteorological parameters (surface air temperature and atmospheric precipitation), with the calculated indices of aridity and moisture (Selyaninov’s hydrothermal coefficient, Pedya’s aridity index, Palmer drought severity index) showed the most sensitive characteristics of the annual ring in the study area. In the forest-steppe zone, the highest values of the correlation coefficients were obtained between the average annual precipitation and the annual ring width ( r = 0.59), early wood width ( r = 0.59), and also between the average air temperature for a hydrological year and the late wood width ( r = 0.51). For trees of the steppe zone, the largest significant correlation coefficients were obtained between water year precipitation and the annual ring width ( r = 0.43), early wood width ( r = 0.43), as well as between the Palmer drought severity index for June-September and the width of early wood ( r = 0.52).