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(Ed.)
Our objective was to examine broadly the climate–growth responses of longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) on
the Coastal Plain province of North and South Carolina to temperature, precipitation, and drought severity. We compared
the responses between standardized earlywood, latewood, adjusted latewood, and totalwood radial tree growth. We sampled
mature longleaf pine growing in open-canopy savanna environments and developed six tree-ring chronologies using standard
dendroecological techniques. We used a combination of Pearson correlation, moving interval correlation, and Fisher r–z
tests to determine which monthly and seasonal variables were most closely related to radial growth, the temporal stability
of the dominant growth/climate relationship, and whether earlywood and latewood growth provide signifcantly diferent
climate responses. Our results show that the strongest relationships with climate are with adjusted latewood growth and
that rainfall in the later parts of the growing season (i.e., July–September) is the primary control of radial growth. Spatially,
we found that growth/climate responses were similar throughout the Coastal Plain region encompassing the six study sites.
Temporally, we found that July–September precipitation produced signifcant (p<0.05) relationships with radial growth
for extended annual intervals, but there were shorter periods when this relationship was non-signifcant. In general, growth/
climate relationships were stronger for latewood compared to earlywood, and these responses were signifcantly (p<0.05)
diferent at about half of our study sites. Our fndings are congruent with prior research in this region showing that shortduration precipitation events are a critical component for radial growth. Further, these results emphasize the importance of
latewood growth—particularly adjusted latewood growth—in capturing interannual climate/growth responses.
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