Arctic moistening provides negative feedbacks to riparian plants.

Arctic moistening will affect the circumpolar forested riparian ecosystems. Upward trends observed for precipitation in high latitudes illustrate that the moistening may be underway to influence the woody biomass production near the inland waters, lakes and streams with effects on carbon pools and fluxes. Although the flooding and waterlogging tolerance of seedlings has been investigated, our understanding of responses in mature trees is still limited. Here we employ tree-ring δ C and width data from a subarctic riparian setting in Lapland, where artificially high lake level (HLL) has already altered the ecophysiological and growth responses of riparian Pinus sylvestris trees to external drivers under conditions simulating moister environment. Prior to the HLL event, the carbon assimilation rate was primarily limited by irradiance as reflected in the δ C data and the radial growth of south-facing riparian trees remained increased in comparison to shaded upland trees. By contrast, the riparian trees were not similarly benefited during the HLL period when reduced assimilation depleted the riparian in comparison to upland δ C despite of increased irradiance. As a result, the radial growth of riparian trees was markedly reduced over the HLL event while the upland trees benefited from increased irradiance and summer time warming. Although the production of biomass at high latitudes is commonly considered temperature-limited, our results highlight the increasing role of Arctic moistening to limit the growth when increased precipitation (cloudiness) reduces the incoming solar radiation in general and when the riparian habitat becomes increasingly waterlogged in particular. The effects of high-latitude warming to induce higher biomass productivity may be restricted by negative feedbacks.