Synchronie large-scale disturbances and red spruce growth decline

Tree-ring data from the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory & Analysis and other independent sources were used to study coincidence of changes in growth and large-scale disturbances. Numerous studies report that mean radial growth of red spruce (Picearubens Sarg.) declined synchronously throughout its range in the early 1960s. We use red spruce tree-ring data from most of the major studies to show that the synchronicity of red spruce growth decline is likely the outcome of the large-scale disturbances that occurred throughout the northeastern red spruce ecosystem in the late 1930s to early 1950s. Large-scale disturbances are either not detectable or not present in the same time interval in the southern Appalachians. This appears to correspond to an absence of a 1960s radial growth reduction in this region.