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

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Abstract

We investigated whether vessel time series of Holm oak (Quercus ilex L.), a diffuse to semi-ring-porous species, can record a climatic signal which differs from the signal encoded in tree-ring width (TRW). The study was conducted in ten Q. ilex trees from a coppice stand in northeast Spain. Chronologies of TRW, mean vessel area (MVA) and maximum vessel area (MAX) were developed and correlated with climate data, for the period 1985–2004 (20 years). Our results indicate that vessel features contain environmental information that is different from that stored in TRW. MAX chronologies correlate better to early spring precipitation (April–May) than TRW chronologies, and so does MVA of the largest 20–25 vessels from the first third of the ring with late spring precipitation (May–June). Also, the combination of MVA and TRW is a better predictor of summer precipitation. This explorative study clearly shows that vessel features can complement the climatic signal of TRW increasing the resolution of the climate reconstructions for the Mediterranean region.

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Acknowledgments

Filipe Campelo was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), Portuguese Ministry for Science and Technology, through a PhD fellowship (SFRH/BD/10677/2002) and by the EC project Millenium (Grant no. 017008). We thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro de Ecologia Funcional, Departamento de Ciências da Vida, Universidade de Coimbra, 3001-401, Coimbra, Portugal

    Filipe Campelo, Cristina Nabais & Helena Freitas

  2. Departament d’Ecologia, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Av. Diagonal, 645, 08028, Barcelona, Spain

    Filipe Campelo & Emilia Gutiérrez

  3. Departamento de Botánica, Escola Politécnica Superior, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Campus de Lugo, 27002, Lugo, Spain

    Ignacio García-González

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  1. Filipe Campelo
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  2. Cristina Nabais
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  3. Emilia Gutiérrez
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  4. Helena Freitas
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  5. Ignacio García-González
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Correspondence to Filipe Campelo.

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Communicated by E. Beck.

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Campelo, F., Nabais, C., Gutiérrez, E. et al. Vessel features of Quercus ilex L. growing under Mediterranean climate have a better climatic signal than tree-ring width. Trees 24, 463–470 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-010-0414-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-010-0414-0

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