What is it about?
I developed a simple regression-based method that allows to determine the intra-day and seasonal patterns of xylem diameter growth based on standard high-resolution measurements of tree trunk diameters using automatic dendrometers. The method does not require a complex numerical model and all parameters are determined with a known level of uncertainty.
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Why is it important?
For the first time we can investigate questions related to the times of day when tree growth takes place. I show that the widely held assumption that trees grow only during the night is likely wrong for a number of species. Growth patterns appear to vary from species to species depending on the balance between water relations, photosynthesis strength and stem sink strength.
Perspectives
Accurately measuring irreversible diameter growth in trees is not simple. It is obvious how much trees growth over long time periods (i.e., years), but the details are in when things happen over what time periods. Because we cannot measure it over short time scales, we do not know the basic patterns of growth. Hence, we still do not have models that can simply and realiably predict tree growth at the time scales when it matters, ie, hourly. This work attempts to fill this gap.
Prof Maurizio Mencuccini
University of Edinburgh
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: An empirical method that separates irreversible stem radial growth from bark water content changes in trees: theory and case studies, Plant Cell & Environment, January 2017, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/pce.12863.
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