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Time series of wood characters - a new proxy to determine changing...

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Title	Time series of wood characters - a new proxy to determine changing environments through the Holocene and to evaluate the impact of future climate change
Period	01 / 2005 - unknown
Status	Current
URL	http://www.fem.wur.nl/UK/Research/theme+2/sass2/
Research number	OND1339621

Abstract

What is the natural variation in climatic factors throughout the Holocene? How will future climate change affect trees and forests in Europe? These are important questions that can be studied using tree rings as natural archives. Tree-ring width is an important proxy in terms past climate and environment reconstruction. However, to date it was impossible to use the full potential of the longest tree-ring chronologies, the Central European oak chronologies, for climate research. The climate signal is too complex to be captured by tree-ring width which integrates all causal factors of annual tree growth throughout in one value. However, high-resolution wood anatomical characters have found to be sensitive indicators of climate and environmental changes. A new approach is presented whereby sets of wood anatomical variables (WAVs) are assessed by using newly developed image-analysis software. A network of WAV chronologies will be developed from oaks growing under both inundated and dry conditions in the Netherlands, Germany and France. This database will be supplemented by results from controlled (flooding) experiments on young oaks. Climate-growth relationships (response functions) will be calculated for oaks in modern floodplain environments and projected on sub-fossil oaks from ancient floodplain forests to reconstruct natural hydrological, climate and environmental changes in the past. Moreover, WAVs will be incorporated in a physiologically based mechanistic tree model to gain insight in the physiological response of oak to (future) climate-induced environmental change

Related organisations

Secretariat	Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group (WUR)
Financier	NWO Council for Earth and Life Sciences (NWO)

Other involved organisations

Drs. M. Friedrich & A. Land (Hohenheim University)
Prof. Dr. Kienzle (University Appl Sc. Esslingen, Germany)
Dr. D. Vansteenkiste (University Ghent, Belgium)
Dr. J.L. Dupouey (INRA, France)
Dr. K. Kramer & Drs. S. Clerkx (Alterra)
Dr. W. Hoek, Dr. F. Wagner & Dr. I. Poole (Utrecht University)
Dr. E. Jansma (RING Foundation)
Dr. H.H. Leuschner (Goettingen University, Germany)
Dr. H. Beeckman (Museum Central Africa, Belgium)
Dr. S.L. Weber (KNMI)

Related people

Researcher	Dr. U. Sass-Klaassen
Project leader	Prof.dr.ir. G.M.J. Mohren