J. For. Sci., 2024, 70(4):176-184 | DOI: 10.17221/118/2023-JFS

Old Juniper Troll stand – The oldest shrub population from ScandinaviaOriginal Paper

Jiří Lehejček ORCID...1, Matěj Roman ORCID...2,3, Martin Lexa ORCID...4, Paul Eric Aspholm ORCID...5, Jiří Mašek ORCID...6
1 Department of Environmental Security, Faculty of Logistics and Crisis Management, Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Uherské Hradiště, Czech Republic
2 Centre for Glaciology, Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, United Kingdom
3 Polar-Geo-Lab, Department of Geography, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University in Brno, Brno, Czech Republic
4 Department of Wood Processing and Biomaterials, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Prague, Czech Republic
5 NIBIO – Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, Svanvik, Norway
6 Department of Physical Geography and Geoecology, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

Old plant communities are of utmost importance for nature conservation, carbon sequestration, as well as gene pool maintenance. Shrub populations occurring in extreme environments beyond abiotic tree-lines provide diverse ecosystem services and have potential as proxy archives because they often inhabit areas with scarce and short instrumental records. We provide dendrochronological insight into one such population made up of prostrate Juniperus communis shrubs in the northern Scandinavian tundra (Norway), growing on a competition-free boulder field. We dated and provided a growth chronology of the oldest living shrub population (190 ± 148 years) from Scandinavia with the oldest individual being 683 years old. This is a conservative estimate, as shrubs in extreme environments do not form even a single row of cells in some years. The cross-dating issues of poorly growing shrubs do not fully allow to rely on climate sensitivity of the juniper population studied, although the species' potential for dendroclimatological reconstructions is generally considered high, also because the common juniper is an abundant woody species distributed globally. Old populations present an important gene source in plant recruitment, particularly in the context of the present environmental change.

Keywords: abiotic tree-line; dendrochronology; Juniperus communis; longevity; Sør-Varanger; wood anatomy

Received: November 16, 2023; Revised: January 22, 2024; Accepted: January 22, 2024; Prepublished online: April 12, 2024; Published: April 24, 2024  Show citation

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Lehejček J, Roman M, Lexa M, Aspholm PE, Mašek J. Old Juniper Troll stand – The oldest shrub population from Scandinavia. J. For. Sci. 2024;70(4):176-184. doi: 10.17221/118/2023-JFS.
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