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Annual variation and influence of climate on the ring width and wood hydrosystem of Prosopis flexuosa DC trees using image analysis

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Abstract

We developed chronologies based on the width of tree rings, total area of vessels, and the number of vessels per tree ring of the Prosopis flexuosa wood samples from the xerophytic woodlands of central Argentina. We evaluated the influence of climate on these tree-ring characteristics considering the period from 1940 to 2004 (65 years). The width of the rings, the number of vessels, and the total area of vessels were positively influenced by regional precipitation corresponding to the seasonalized November to December period, which reflects the importance of the water availability in the initial stage of the formation of the wood. The width of the rings and the total area of vessels were negatively influenced by temperature during the same period, while the number of vessels was not significantly correlated with temperature. The high temperatures in spring increase evapotranspiration, which reduces water availability to plants and results in an inverse growth response. This study was the first to develop chronologies based on anatomical characters of wood from the arid and semiarid regions of South America and with significant applications in ecological and climatic studies.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica of Argentina (PICTR2002-00200) and SECYT-CAPES (106/2006-07). We are grateful to Ruben Marquez for allowing us to collect samples on his property. We thank Juan Alvarez and José Hernández for their field assistance, Silvia Delgado for the programming of PC-Image, Pierre Pitte and Rafael Bottero for the location map and Judith Boshoven for the English review. We appreciate helpful suggestions and insightful comments from the reviewers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratorio de Dendrocronología e Historia Ambiental, IANIGLA, CCT-CONICET-Mendoza, CC 330, 5500, Mendoza, Argentina

    María Alejandra Giantomasi, Fidel Alejandro Roig Juñent, Pablo Eugenio Villagra & Ana Marina Srur

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  1. María Alejandra Giantomasi
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  2. Fidel Alejandro Roig Juñent
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  3. Pablo Eugenio Villagra
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  4. Ana Marina Srur
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Correspondence to María Alejandra Giantomasi.

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Communicated by S. Leavitt.

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Giantomasi, M.A., Juñent, F.A.R., Villagra, P.E. et al. Annual variation and influence of climate on the ring width and wood hydrosystem of Prosopis flexuosa DC trees using image analysis. Trees 23, 117–126 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-008-0260-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-008-0260-5

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