Expeditious building of ring-porous earlywood vessel chronologies without loosing signal information

Abstract

Chronologies of earlywood vessel size of ringporous trees contain valuable ecological information, but long preparation procedures limit their application in ecological studies. Recent and fast techniques for wood surface preparation combined with automated image analysis are reducing the work needed to build chronologies, but might also entail measurement inaccuracy. In this study, we aim to evaluate the effect of a possible efficiency-accuracy trade-off on ecological signal strength. To this end, we compare measurements of mean vessel area from two recent and fast procedures carried out on sanded wood surfaces with a reference procedure based on an accurate survey from thin sections. Measurements were performed on increment cores of 15 sessile oaks (Quercus petraea (Mattuschka) Liebl.) for the period 1956-2006. Dissimilarities in results with the reference procedure were quantified and evaluated. Our data show that the workload can be reduced by more than 20-fold when using the highly automated procedure. Signal weakening caused by measurement errors is negligible for vessels [6,000 lm 2 and can be easily compensated by increasing the sample size. Manual correction of misrecognized vessels hardly reduced this error further. The new procedures constitute a major step towards an efficient and accurate analysis of earlywood vessel chronologies of ring-porous tree species.

A novel computer-aided tree-ring analysis software (CATS): oak earlywood vessel size reveals a clear spring heat sum response

“…et al 2016), in winter-spring (Tumajer and Treml 2016) as well as a negative precipitation signal during the autumnwinter period (González-González et al 2015). Studies of other Quercus species often reveal a clear response to precipitation (e.g., Fonti et al 2009;González-González et al 2014). Our findings agree with the studies showing a direct positive correlation of temperature and earlywood vessel size during the time of formation in spring.…”

Vessel features of Quercus ilex L. growing under Mediterranean climate have a better climatic signal than tree-ring width

“…The study of other anatomical features, such as MVA and MAX, is more time-consuming and only worthwhile if they supply different environmental information from that obtained with TRW (Fonti and García-González 2004;Fonti et al 2009a). According to our results, TRW of Q. ilex showed a stronger common signal (EPS and R bt ) and a higher MS than vessel features (MVA and MAX), suggesting that TRW is apparently more appropriate for dendrochronological studies.…”

“…Obtaining time series of vessel features is highly timeconsuming (Tardif and Conciatori 2006), which may explain the low number of studies that use vessels as ecological or climatological proxies (Fonti et al 2009a). The utility of vessel features as potential proxies for dendroecological studies depends on their capacity to provide distinct signals or to increase the signal strength of traditional tree-ring variables (e.g.…”

Influence of climate on tree-ring and earlywood vessel formation in Quercus robur in Latvia

“…However, tree-ring width is affected by many environmental factors and also by the condition of the individual tree (Fritts 2001;Schweingruber 1996;Speer 2010). Since the 1970s with the progress of digital technologies and automation of measurements, the use of anatomical structures of wood has gained importance in dendrochronology (Eckstein and Frisse 1982;Fonti et al 2009aFonti et al , 2010Woodcock 1989). Wood anatomical proxies, such as earlywood vessel (EV) parameters, can provide additional information about climatic factors, which are not evident in tree-ring width series (Fonti et al 2009b(Fonti et al , 2010Matisons and Dauškane 2009).…”