Within-ring variability of wood structure and its relationship to drought sensitivity in Norway spruce trunks

Luss, Saskia; Lundqvist, Sven‐Olof; Evans, Robert; Grahn, Thomas; Olsson, Lars E.; Petit, Giai; Rosner, Sabine

doi:10.1163/22941932-40190216

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Only when water deficit further increases, embolism spreads in the EW and finally reaches the transition wood (Dalla-Salda et al, 2014). However, the loss in conductivity is not related to where the initial cavitation occurs, but to the wood anatomical structure (e.g., RWD and EW to LW ratio) that shapes the species vulnerability to drought events (Luss et al, 2019).…”

Section: Wood Density and Hydraulic Vulnerabilitymentioning

confidence: 98%

Functional Relationships of Wood Anatomical Traits in Norway Spruce

et al. 2020

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The quantitative assessment of wood anatomical traits offers important insights into those factors that shape tree growth. While it is known that conduit diameter, cell wall thickness, and wood density vary substantially between and within species, the interconnection between wood anatomical traits, tree-ring width, tree height and age, as well as environment effects on wood anatomy remain unclear. Here, we measure and derived 65 wood anatomical traits in cross-sections of the five outermost tree rings (2008-2012) of 30 Norway spruce [Picea abies (L.) H. Karst.] trees growing along an altitudinal gradient (1,400-1,750 m a.s.l.) in the northern Apennines (Italy). We assess the relationship among each anatomical trait and between anatomical trait groups according to their function for (i) tree-ring growth, (ii) cell growth, (iii) hydraulic traits, and (iv) mechanical traits. The results show that tree height significantly affects wood hydraulic traits, as well as number and tangential diameter of tracheids, and ultimately the total ring width. Moreover, the amount of earlywood and latewood percentage influence wood hydraulic safety and efficiency, as well as mechanical traits. Mechanically relevant wood anatomical traits are mainly influenced by tree age, not necessarily correlated with tree height. An additional level of complexity is also indicated by some anatomical traits, such as latewood lumen diameter and the cell wall reinforcement index, showing large inter-annual variation as a proxy of phenotypic plasticity. This study unravels the complex interconnection of tree-ring tracheid structure and identifies anatomical traits showing a large inter-individual variation and a strong interannual coherency. Knowing and quantifying anatomical variation in cells of plant stem is crucial in ecological and biological studies for an appropriate interpretation of abiotic drivers of wood formation often related to tree height and/or tree age.

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Section: Wood Density and Hydraulic Vulnerabilitymentioning

confidence: 98%

Functional Relationships of Wood Anatomical Traits in Norway Spruce

et al. 2020

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“…Basic wood density was the best proxy for P 50 as shown in earlier studies [20,29,44]. Wood density is, however, not that easily determined at the tree ring level, whereby techniques such as X-ray micro-density or high-frequency densitometry must be applied [24,30,31]. Differences in wood density result from changes in lumen diameter and cell wall thickness.…”

Section: Tangentially Measured Anatomical Traits Have a Higher Predic...mentioning

confidence: 75%

“…The relationship between t/b and P 50 is tighter across conifer species than the relationships between pit anatomical traits and P 50 [22]. Several approaches to estimate proxies for P 50 based on tracheid dimensions can be found in the literature; measurements are either performed in the initially formed tracheid rows [23], in the entire earlywood [22,24], or in several radial files across the whole annual ring, where (t/b) 2 is thereafter assessed on tracheids that are in the range of defined hydraulic diameters e.g., [20,[25][26][27]. Refs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Refs. [24,27] detangled tangential and radial lumen diameters when calculating (t/b) 2 as a proxy for P 50 , because of the much tighter relationships between tangential lumen dimensions and P 50 . Anatomical proxies for P 50 offer the advantage that samples do not need to be fresh and that hydraulic vulnerability can be determined retrospectively for selected annual rings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ready for Screening: Fast Assessable Hydraulic and Anatomical Proxies for Vulnerability to Cavitation of Young Conifer Sapwood

Rosner

Nöbauer

Voggeneder

2021

Forests

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Research Highlights: novel fast and easily assessable proxies for vulnerability to cavitation of conifer sapwood are proposed that allow reliable estimation at the species level. Background and Objectives: global warming calls for fast and easily applicable methods to measure hydraulic vulnerability in conifers since they are one of the most sensitive plant groups regarding drought stress. Classical methods to determine P12, P50 and P88, i.e., the water potentials resulting in 12, 50 and 88% conductivity loss, respectively, are labour intensive, prone to errors and/or restricted to special facilities. Vulnerability proxies were established based on empirical relationships between hydraulic traits, basic density and sapwood anatomy. Materials and Methods: reference values for hydraulic traits were obtained by means of the air injection method on six conifer species. Datasets for potential P50 proxies comprised relative water loss (RWL), basic density, saturated water content as well as anatomical traits such as double wall thickness, tracheid lumen diameter and wall/lumen ratio. Results: our novel proxy P25W, defined as 25% RWL induced by air injection, was the most reliable estimate for P50 (r = 0.95) and P88 (r = 0.96). Basic wood density (r = −0.92), tangential lumen diameters in earlywood (r = 0.88), wall/lumen ratios measured in the tangential direction (r = −0.86) and the number of radial cell files/mm circumference (CF/mm, r = −0.85) were also strongly related to P50. Moreover, CF/mm was a very good predictor for P12 (r = −0.93). Conclusions: the proxy P25W is regarded a strong phenotyping tool for screening conifer species for vulnerability to cavitation assuming that the relationship between RWL and conductivity loss is robust in conifer sapwood. We also see a high potential for the fast and easily applicable proxy CF/mm as a screening tool for drought sensitivity and for application in dendroecological studies that investigate forest dieback.

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“…Wood density is a key parameter with paramount importance for carbon sequestration and woody biomass production as well as for wood quality including various wood technological properties such as hardness and mechanical stability or calorific value (Wassenberg et al, 2015a). In addition, wood density has been frequently associated with the resistance of the xylem hydraulic architecture against embolism and hydraulic failure during drought (Martinez-Meier et al, 2008;Rosner et al, 2014;Luss et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multivariate drought stress response of Norway spruce, silver fir and Douglas fir along elevational gradients in Southwestern Germany

et al. 2022

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The conifer tree species Norway spruce (Picea abies), silver fir (Abies alba) and Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) are important elements in tree species composition and forest management of Central European forests, but their potential to thrive under anticipated climatic changes is still debated controversially. This study contributes a multivariate analysis of resilience components based on increment cores sampled at breast height of Norway spruce, silver fir and Douglas fir trees growing along elevational gradients in Southwestern Germany. We aimed to gain novel insights into the species-specific and elevational response of tree growth and wood density variables during the extreme drought events of the years 2003 and 2018. Our results for Norway spruce corroborate projections of its ongoing decline during climate change as the reductions of wood density and biomass production indicated high drought sensitivity at all elevations. Moreover, resilience indices of mean tree-ring density, maximum latewood density, tree-ring width and biomass production were even lower after the drought of 2018 compared to the previous drought of 2003. Silver fir, a potential substitute tree species for Norway spruce, showed unexpected results with resistance and resilience indices being significantly lower in 2018 compared to 2003 indicating that silver fir might be more vulnerable to drought than previously expected, especially at low elevations. In contrast, the superior growth rates and higher levels of drought tolerance of Douglas fir were especially pronounced during the drought of 2018 and visible across the entire elevational gradient, even though high coning intensity was present for all investigated tree species as a possible confounding factor to exacerbate the drought stress effects in the study region.

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Within-ring variability of wood structure and its relationship to drought sensitivity in Norway spruce trunks

Cited by 9 publications

References 43 publications

Functional Relationships of Wood Anatomical Traits in Norway Spruce

Functional Relationships of Wood Anatomical Traits in Norway Spruce

Ready for Screening: Fast Assessable Hydraulic and Anatomical Proxies for Vulnerability to Cavitation of Young Conifer Sapwood

Multivariate drought stress response of Norway spruce, silver fir and Douglas fir along elevational gradients in Southwestern Germany

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