Dendroclimatic regions of Douglas fir Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco in western and northern Poland

This study concerned 26 forest stands with Douglas fir situated in Lower Silesia, Great Poland, Pomerania, Warmia and Masuria. Each stand was represented by 24 trees. From each tree an increment core was taken by Pressler’s borer. The principal components analysis showed that the first three principal components accounted for 73% of the variation of chronologies in total. The first principal component was the most convergent with the mean air temperature curve for January–March, the second with the total precipitation for June–August, and the third with the mean temperature for June–August. The first principal component always integrated the chronologies and decided on a similar rhythm of changes in the tree-ring widths. The annual variation of tree-ring widths was also affected by precipitation in summer (June–August), but this differentiated the chronologies. This was reflected by the dispersion of chronologies in respect to the eigenvectors of the second principal component. The third principal component also differentiated the chronologies. Separate groups were formed by the most eastern and the most western localities of the territory under investigations. Thus the Douglas fir growth reactions were mainly affected by the thermal and pluvial conditions of summer and, to a lesser, degree by the thermal conditions of winter. On the basis of these results it was possible to distinguish the dendroclimatically homogeneous regions in western and northern Poland.