1. Modelling seasonal dynamics of secondary growth in RJernej Jevšenak, Jožica Gričar, Sergio Rossi, Peter Prislan, 2022, original scientific article Abstract: The monitoring of seasonal radial growth of woody plants addresses the ultimate question of when, how and why trees grow. Assessing the growth dynamics is important to quantify the effect of environmental drivers and understand how woody species will deal with the ongoing climatic changes. One of the crucial steps in the analyses of seasonal radial growth is to model the dynamics of xylem and phloem formation based on increment measurements on samples taken at relatively short intervals during the growing season. The most common approach is the use of the Gompertz equation, while other approaches, such as general additive models (GAMs) and generalised linear models (GLMs), have also been tested in recent years. For the first time, we explored artificial neural networks with Bayesian regularisation algorithm (BRNNs) and show that this method is easy to use, resistant to overfitting, tends to yield s-shaped curves and is therefore suitable for deriving temporal dynamics of secondary tree growth. We propose two data processing algorithms that allow more flexible fits. The main result of our work is the XPSgrowth() function implemented in the radial Tree Growth (rTG) R package, that can be used to evaluate and compare three modelling approaches: BRNN, GAM and the Gompertz function. The newly developed function, tested on intra-seasonal xylem and phloem formation data, has potential applications in many ecological and environmental disciplines where growth is expressed as a function of time. Different approaches were evaluated in terms of prediction error, while fitted curves were visually compared to derive their main characteristics. Our results suggest that there is no single best fitting method, therefore we recommend testing different fitting methods and selection of the optimal one.
Keywords: artificial neural networks, cambium, generalized additive model, Gompertz function, growing season, intra-annual time series
Published in DiRROS: 21.07.2022; Views: 472; Downloads: 321
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2. Transition dates from earlywood to latewood and early phloem to late phloem in Norway SpruceJožica Gričar, Katarina Čufar, Klemen Eler, Vladimir Gryc, Hanuš Vavrčík, Martin De Luis, Peter Prislan, 2021, original scientific article Abstract: Climate change will affect radial growth patterns of trees, which will result in different forest productivity, wood properties, and timber quality. While many studies have been published on xylem phenology and anatomy lately, little is known about the phenology of earlywood and latewood formation, also in relation to cambial phenology. Even less information is available for phloem. Here, we examined year-to-year variability of the transition dates from earlywood to latewood and from early phloem to late phloem in Norway spruce (Picea abies) from three temperate sites, two in Slovenia and one in the Czech Republic. Data on xylem and phloem formation were collected during 2009-2011. Sensitivity analysis was performed to determine the specific contribution of growth rate and duration on wood and phloem production, separately for early and late formed parts. We found significant differences in the transition date from earlywood to latewood between the selected sites, but not between growth seasons in trees from the same site. It occurred in the first week of July at PAN and MEN and more than two weeks later at RAJ. The duration of earlywood formation was longer than that of latewood formation; from 31.4 days at PAN to 61.3 days at RAJ. In phloem, we found differences in transition date from early phloem to late phloem also between the analysed growth seasons; from 2.5 weeks at PAN to 4 weeks at RAJ Compared to the transition from earlywood to latewood the transition from early phloem to late phloem occurred 25-64 days earlier. There was no significant relationship between the onset of cambial cell production and the transition dates. The findings are important to better understand the inter-annual variability of these phenological events in spruce from three contrasting temperate sites, and how it is reflected in xylem and phloem anatomy.
Keywords: Picea abies, xylem formation, phloem formation, cambium, tracheid, sieve cell, conifer, temperate environment
Published in DiRROS: 22.03.2021; Views: 1120; Downloads: 823
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3. Timeline of autumn phenology in temperate deciduous treesInge Dox, Jožica Gričar, Lorène Julia Marchand, Sebastien Leys, Paolo Zuccarini, Charly Geron, Peter Prislan, Bertold Mariën, Patrick Fonti, Holger Lange, Josep Peñuelas, Jan Van den Bulcke, Matteo Campioli, 2020, original scientific article Abstract: Cessation of xylem formation or wood growth (CWG) and onset of foliar senescence (OFS) are key autumn phenological events in temperate deciduous trees. Their timing is fundamental for development and survival of trees, ecosystem nutrient cycling, the seasonal exchange of matter and energy between the biosphere and atmosphere and affect the impact and feedback of forests to global change. A large-scale experimental effort and improved observational methods have allowed us to compare the timing of CWG and OFS for different deciduous tree species in Western Europe, in particularly silver birch, a pioneer species, and European beech, a late-succession species, at stands of different latitudes, of different levels of site fertility, and for two years with contrasting meteorological and drought conditions i.e., the low-moderately dry 2017 and the extremely dry 2018. Specifically, we tested whether foliar senescence started before, after or concurrently with CWG. OFS and CWG occurred generally between late September and early November, with larger differences across species and sites for OFS. Foliar senescence started concurrently with CWG in most cases, except for the drier 2018 and, for beech, at the coldest site, where OFS occurred significantly later than CWG. Behavior of beech in Spain, the southern edge of its European distribution, was unclear, with no CWG, but very low wood growth at the time of OFS. Our study suggests that OFS is generally triggered by the same drivers of CWG or when wood growth decreases in late summer, indicating an overarching mechanism of sink limitation as a possible regulator of the timing of foliar senescence.
Keywords: autumn phenology, xylem formation, foliar senescence, cambium, chlorophyll, radial growth, wood, decidiuous trees, common aspen, common beech, pedunculate oak, silver birch
Published in DiRROS: 10.06.2020; Views: 1899; Downloads: 1138
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