Abstract
The thickness of bark (cork) is of utmost importance for its industrial processing and, therefore, for the sustainable management of cork oak (Quercus suber L.) woodlands. Cork thickness has been reported to decrease from the stem base upwards but, to our knowledge, prediction models have not yet been presented. This study intended to develop reliable models to predict stem profiles of cork thickness. We addressed the relationship between bark thickness and stem height by measuring stem diameters and cork thickness at various stem heights in 76 trees. Through a repeated measure ANOVA, we selected the bark thickness response variables, cork-ring width and cork thickness. A mixed-effect modelling approach was used to fit linear bark thickness curves with stem height. Our results showed that the equations that performed better for cork thickness were functions of the stem relative height and cross-sectional cork area increment. The decreasing trend upwards the stem might lead to underestimation of cork thickness at the base, more than overestimate it at upper stem parts, in relation to the values at breast height, which are generally used to estimate the thickness of the whole cork plank. Furthermore, cork thickness curves were tree size-related, with larger trees exhibiting a steeper reduction in cork thickness upwards the stem.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Rui Alves for allowing the study design, tree selection and cork sampling, in the cork oak woodland of Companhia das Lezírias, S.A. We also thank the collaboration of Pedro Sousa in the forest inventory and cork sampling, and Graça Oliveira for her valuable support in improving the English reading of the manuscript. Furthermore, the authors thank the comments and suggestions of two anonymous referees that clearly helped to improve the manuscript.
Funding
OakRegeneration project (Promoting agricultural set aside areas towards new oak natural regeneration hotspots) supported by FEADER PDR2020 (PDR2020-101-031071); National Protocol INIAV, I.P. & Companhia das Lezírias S.A.—“Variability of cork thickness and porosity at individual tree level”; Project UID/AMB/04085/2013 supported by national funds through the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT); SuberInStress project supported by PORLisboa2020 and Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) (PTDC/BIA/FBT/29704-2017). Augusta Costa’s work was partially funded by Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Post-doctoral Grant Number SFRH/BPD/97166/2013.
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A.C. conceived the study and provided the data. A.C. and I.B. performed the analysis. C.M. contributed to the discussion of the obtained results and the writing of the original draft. M.P. contributed with the laboratory facilities and resources for the cork sample’s image analysis. All the authors contributed with the final writing, review and editing.
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Costa, A., Barbosa, I., Pestana, M. et al. Modelling bark thickness variation in stems of cork oak in south-western Portugal. Eur J Forest Res 139, 611–625 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-020-01273-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-020-01273-9