Revealing past needle density in Pinus spp.

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Abstract
The number of short shoots per shoot length, or needle density, is species typical, and it shows year‐to‐year variation within species. By modification of the needle trace method, long‐term needle density chronology was produced in a Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) stand, located at the northern timberline in Finland. Treewise, needle density varied between 9 and 14 short shoots per long shoot (stem internode) centimetre, the annual minimum and maximum values being 5 and 37 short shoots cm−1. The stand‐specific long‐term average was 10.5 short shoots cm−1, and the mean annual value varied between 17 and 8 short shoots cm−1 in 1951 and 1984, respectively. The long‐term pattern in needle density was one of decline with time between 1950 and the mid‐1970s, then to slightly increase on entering the 1990s. The years when the density was relatively high were 1957, 1968 and 1981, indicative of some climatic extremes.