Drought variation recorded by growth rings of the shrub Sabina vulgaris in the middle Qilian Mountains, northwest China

Abstract The evergreen coniferous creeping shrub, Sabina vulgaris, is widely distributed in China, from high and cold mountain sites to low-elevation arid desert areas. This paper performed dendroclimatological analysis of the samples of S. vulgaris from three sampling sites (2700–2900 m a.s.l.) at sites in the northern border of the middle Qilian Mountains, Northwest China. We found that the radial growth of S. vulgaris was mainly limited by rainfall during the growing season, especially in May and June, but was also limited by low temperatures in the late growing season. It presents the regional differention of the climate response of the shrub radial growth from the other distributed areas, such as the sandland and mountains. We constructed a 274-year drought record by calibrating growth-ring data and relating this data to the regional monthly Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI56), which represents regional moisture conditions. The PDSI56 reconstruction accounted for 35.5 % of the variation of the actual May to June PDSI56 during the period for which meteorological data was available (1950–2014). The most severe drought occurred during the 1920s, followed by the 1950s, 1740s, and the period from the 1870s to the 1880s; the wettest years were during the 1980s, followed by the 2010s, 1770s, and 1750. The changes between drought, normal, and wet periods were consistent with the reconstructed results from previous conifer ring series for Sabina przewalskii and Picea crassifolia in the study area. Our results demonstrate the value of S. vulgaris in dendrochronology.