Based on radial tree growth measurements in nine plots of area 625 m(2) (369 trees in total) and climate data, we explored the possibly changing effects of climate on regional tree growth in the temperate continental semi-arid mountain forests in the Tianshan Mountains in northwest China during 1933-2005. Tree growth in our study region is generally limited by the soil water content of pre-and early growing season (February-July). Remarkably, moving correlation functions identified a clear temporal change in the relationship between tree growth and mean April temperature. Tree growth showed a significant (p < 0 : 05) and negative relationship to mean April temperature since approximately the beginning of the 1970s, which indicated that the semi-arid mountain forests are suffering a prolonged growth limitation in recent years accompanying spring warming. This prolonged limitation of tree growth was attributed to the effects of soil water limitation in early spring (March-April) caused by the rapid spring warming. Warming-induced prolonged drought stress contributes, to a large part, to the marked reduction of regional basal area increment (BAI) in recent years and a much slower growth rate in young trees. Our results highlight that the increasing water limitation induced by spring warming on tree growth most likely aggravated the marked reduction in tree growth. This work provides a better understanding of the effects of spring warming on tree growth in temperate continental semi-arid forests.

Strong climate warming is predicted at higher latitudes this century, with potentially major consequences for productivity and carbon sequestration. Although northern peatlands contain one-third of the world's soil organic carbon, little is known about the long-term responses to experimental climate change of vascular plant communities in these Sphagnum-dominated ecosystems. We aimed to see how long-term experimental climate manipulations, relevant to different predicted future climate scenarios, affect total vascular plant abundance and species composition when the community is dominated by mosses. During 8 years, we investigated how the vascular plant community of a Sphagnum fuscum-dominated subarctic peat bog responded to six experimental climate regimes, including factorial combinations of summer as well as spring warming and a thicker snow cover. Vascular plant species composition in our peat bog was more stable than is typically observed in (sub)arctic experiments: neither changes in total vascular plant abundance, nor in individual species abundances, Shannon's diversity or evenness were found in response to the climate manipulations. For three key species (Empetrum hermaphroditum, Betula nana and S. fuscum) we also measured whether the treatments had a sustained effect on plant length growth responses and how these responses interacted. Contrasting with the stability at the community level, both key shrubs and the peatmoss showed sustained positive growth responses at the plant level to the climate treatments. However, a higher percentage of moss-encroached E. hermaphroditum shoots and a lack of change in B. nana net shrub height indicated encroachment by S. fuscum, resulting in long-term stability of the vascular community composition: in a warmer world, vascular species of subarctic peat bogs appear to just keep pace with growing Sphagnum in their race for space. Our findings contribute to general ecological theory by demonstrating that community resistance to environmental changes does not necessarily mean inertia in vegetation response.