Variation of Stem Radius in Response to Defoliation in Boreal Conifers
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In the long term, defoliation strongly decreases tree growth and survival. Insect outbreaks are a typical cause of severe defoliation. Eastern spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana Clem.) outbreaks are one of the most significant disturbances of Picea and Abies boreal forests. Nevertheless, in boreal conifers, a 2-year defoliation has been shown to quickly improve tree water status, protect the foliage and decrease growth loss. It suggests that defoliation effects are time-dependent and could switch from favorable in the short term to unfavorable when defoliation duration exceeds 5–10 years. A better understanding of the effect of defoliation on stem radius variation during the needle flushing time-window could help to elucidate the relationships between water use and tree growth during an outbreak in the medium term. This study aims to assess the effects of eastern spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana Clem.) defoliation and bud phenology on stem radius variation in black spruce [Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P.] and balsam fir [Abies balsamea (L.) Mill.] in a natural stand in Quebec, Canada. We monitored host and insect phenology, new shoot defoliation, seasonal stem radius variation and daytime radius phases (contraction and expansion) from 2016 to 2019. We found that defoliation significantly increased stem growth at the beginning of needle flushing. Needles flushing influenced the amplitude and duration of daily stem expansion and contraction, except the amplitude of stem contraction. Over the whole growing season, defoliation increased the duration of stem contraction, which in turn decreased the duration of stem expansion. However, the change (increase/decrease) of the duration of contraction/expansion reflects a reduced ability of the potential recovery from defoliation. Black spruce showed significantly larger 24-h cycles of stem amplitude compared to balsam fir. However, both species showed similar physiological adjustments during mild stress, preventing water loss from stem storage zones to support the remaining needles’ transpiration. Finally, conifers react to defoliation during a 4-year period, modulating stem radius variation phases according to the severity of the defoliation.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".