Inter and intra-annual links between climate, tree growth and NDVI: improving the resolution of drought proxies in conifer forests

The inter- and intra-annual variability in radial growth reflects responses to climatic variability and water shortage, especially in areas subjected to seasonal drought. However, it is unknown how this variability is related to forest productivity, which can be assessed by measuring changes in canopy greenness and cover through remote sensing products as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). We combine xylogenesis with measurements of inter-annual changes in seasonal wood production (earlywood width, adjusted latewood width) and NDVI to improve the understanding of climate and drought impacts on growth and forest productivity in a Pinus teocote stand located in northern Mexico. Cambial dynamics accelerated in March and a high production of radially enlarging and thickening tracheids were observed from April to October and from June to October, respectively. Tracheid maturation was very active in October when latewood production peaked. Wet conditions in winter-spring and summer-autumn enhanced earlywood and latewood production, respectively. Earlywood and latewood were constrained by long (4–10 months) and short (2–3 months) droughts, respectively. The earlywood production depended on April soil moisture, which agrees with the peak of radially enlarging tracheid production found during that month. Aligning drought proxies at inter- and intra-annual scales by using growth and productivity measures improves our understanding of conifer forest responses to water shortage.