Forests provide fundamental ecosystem services. Environmental changes are predicted to affect forest growth directly through increased environmental stressors, and indirectly by amplifying disturbance. To increase our understanding of effects of environmental changes and disturbance on Afromontane forest growth, we used tree-ring data collected from Juniperus procera trees from church forests in the northwest highlands of Ethiopia. We used structural change models to detect structural shift in growth trends. We applied Linear Mixed Effect Models (LMM) to compare growth rate differences between successive tree generations. The running mean method and radial growth pattern analysis were used to detect disturbance events. Three groups of generations were identified based on Basal Area Increment (BAI) rates. There are significant differences (?=2204.64, P<.001) anong generations in pace of BAI, indicating that old generation trees grew at a slower pace than younger ones. Radial growth patterns were homogeneous for the old generation, but diverse in young trees. The observed high growth rates in the younger generation may have a negative effect on the longevity of the individuals and positively affect carbon accumulation in the biomass. Disturbance was detected in all generations, but worsened in the 20th century. anout 35% of disturbances matched with climate extreme events, providing evidence that the disturbance is both human-induced (i.e., site-specific) and climate-induced. Thus, forest management plans should emerge from a sound understanding of climate-forest-human interaction.
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- Tree-ring record in Ethiopian church forests reveals successive generation differences in growth rates and disturbance events
 
						 Restoration
																	Restoration																 Plantations and tree crop commodities
																	Plantations and tree crop commodities																 Enhanced nutrition and food security
																	Enhanced nutrition and food security																 Biodiversity, safeguarding and conservation
																	Biodiversity, safeguarding and conservation																 Nationally determined contributions
																	Nationally determined contributions																 Bioenergy and biomaterials
																	Bioenergy and biomaterials																 Blue carbon and peatlands
																	Blue carbon and peatlands																 Climate change adaptation
																	Climate change adaptation																 Landscape governance
																	Landscape governance																 Gender
																	Gender																 Silvopastoral systems
																	Silvopastoral systems																 Market-based agroforestry-forestry
																	Market-based agroforestry-forestry																 Farm-forest policy interface
																	Farm-forest policy interface																 Agroecology
																	Agroecology																 Livelihood trajectory modelling and assessment
																	Livelihood trajectory modelling and assessment																 Inclusive finance and business models
																	Inclusive finance and business models																 Innovating finance for sustainable landscapes
																	Innovating finance for sustainable landscapes																 Public and private commitments to zero deforestation
																	Public and private commitments to zero deforestation																 Orphan tree crops
																	Orphan tree crops																 Effectiveness of approaches to sustainable supply
																	Effectiveness of approaches to sustainable supply																 Quality of FTA research for development
																	Quality of FTA research for development																 Sentinel landscapes
																	Sentinel landscapes																 Foresight
																	Foresight																 Seeds and seedlings delivery systems
																	Seeds and seedlings delivery systems																 Smallholder tree-crop commodities
																	Smallholder tree-crop commodities																 
																	 
																	 
																	 
																	 
																	 
																	 
																	 
																	 
                                                 
                                                 
                                                 
                                                     
                                                     
                                                     
                                                     
                                                     
                                                     
                                                    