© 2003 Heron Publishing—Victoria, Canada
Climatic signal of earlywood vessels of oak on a maritime site
Ignacio García González (1, 2) and Dieter Eckstein (3)
1. University of Santiago de Compostela, Department of Botany, EPS, E-27002 Lugo, Spain / 2. Author to whom correspondence should be addressed (bvluigg@lugo.usc.es) / 3. University of Hamburg, Institute of Wood Biology, Leuschnerstrasse 91, D-21031 Hamburg, Germany / Received April 23, 2002; accepted October 3, 2002; published online April 1, 2003
Summary
Earlywood vessel lumen areas were measured in 72 consecutive tree rings in wood cores from oak (Quercus robur L.) trees in a maritime woodland. This anatomical time series was statistically correlated with climate data for the same
time span. There was a strong dependence of earlywood vessel lumen area on rainfall between February and April, which reflects
the role of water availability in vessel ontogeny. By inversion, earlywood vessel lumen areas can be used as a proxy to reconstruct
spring precipitation beyond the archived weather records. Such information may be of value in the context of climate change.
Keywords:
dendrochronology, image analysis, Quercus robur, tree rings, vessel area.
