Fig 1.
Development of tree size with age.
Tree size is represented by DBHib (diameter at breast height inside bark); the color gradient indicates the lifespan of the mountain pines. Trees were assigned to classes of early growth (mean ring width over the first 50 years): (a) > 1.5 mm yr-1 (n = 7 trees); (b) 1.25–1.5 mm yr-1 (n = 8 trees); (c) 1.0–1.25 mm yr-1 (n = 27 trees); (d) 0.75–1.0 mm yr-1 (n = 54 trees); (e) 0.5–0.75 mm yr-1 (n = 46 trees); (f) <0.5 mm yr-1 (n = 18 trees).
Fig 2.
Distribution of tree size and lifespan versus early growth.
Boxplots of (a) DBHib (diameter at breast height inside bark) at the time of tree death; and (b) lifespan. The variables are plotted for different classes of early growth (mean ring width over the first 50 years; n = 160 trees).
Fig 3.
Comparison of temperature and precipitation with establishment and mortality of mountain pines.
(a) Mean temperatures (May to September) from 1780 to 2008. Shaded colors indicate values above and below the overall mean temperature (8.27°C); (b) precipitation sums (May to September) from 1801 to 2003. Shaded colors indicate values above and below the overall mean precipitation (550 mm); (c) line plot of crossdated increment cores. Each horizontal line extends from the year of establishment (represented by the formation year of the first tree ring, corrected for missed rings) to the approximate year of mortality (represented by the formation year of the last tree ring) of a dead mountain pine. The same number of trees and classes of early growth as in Fig 1 are shown. Within each class of early growth, the trees were ordered according to the year of establishment. The color gradient indicates the lifespan of the trees.
Table 1.
Comparison of linear mixed-effects models for predicting lifespan of mountain pines.
Table 2.
Description of model 32 (see Table 1).