Abstract
Abstract
Climate change is forcing us to reassess the foundational principles of forest management. Shifts in temperature, precipitation, and extreme weather events are altering both our understanding of forest ecosystems and how we steward them. Scientific research aimed at providing useful information can help forest managers make informed, evidence‐based decisions. For example, black cherry's (
Prunus serotina
Ehrh.) distribution in eastern Canada represents the northern limit of its native range, where it is thought to have the potential to become a commercial tree species in the future. We documented the long‐term (1967–2022) radial increment of 1405 growth observations from 787 trees distributed among 260 ground plots in eastern Canada using the Multi‐Agency Ground Plot (MAGPlot) database. Out of several models assessed, including variables related to climate, physiography, and competition, the competition model had the best fit in absolute and relative radial growth. Increases in total basal area of the plot lowered black cherry's radial growth. Similarly, absolute and relative radial growth were much higher among dominant and codominant trees compared to intermediate and suppressed trees, but growth differences became less pronounced over time. The temporal decrease in growth likely coincided with reductions in anthropogenetic nitrogen deposition. The absence of strong climate–growth relationships in the MAGPlot database should not imply that black cherry is unaffected by climate. Rather, our findings underscore the difficulty of detecting these effects with inventory data. Implications related to forest management reside in the importance of managing the amount of competition to maintain trees in dominant or codominant positions and sustain tree growth.