In the article entitled “The 2018 European heatwave led to stem dehydration but not to consistent growth reductions in forests” published by an international team in Nature Communications we present how trees reacted to the record-breaking 2018 heatwave in Europe. Data from 21 tree species across 53 sites which were gathered within the DenDrought 2018 research initiative showed that annual tree growth was not reduced by the 2018 heatwave but stems experienced higher temporary shrinkage due to dehydration. Conifer species were particularly sensitive to this stress factor. Data were provided by an extensive network of study plots with dendrometers – sensors which monitor stem diameter changes with a very high temporal resolution. In the paper, co-authored by Krzysztof Stereńczak, Ewa Zin and Łukasz Kuberski, band dendrometer data of the ForBioSensing project on stem girth changes (each 1 hour) of nine tree species in various habitat conditions in Białowieża Forest were used.

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text. E.Zin