We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Wood anatomy of boreal species in a warming world: a review.
- Authors
Shaokang Zhang; Belien, Evelyn; Ren, Hai; Rossi, Sergio; Jian-Guo Huang
- Abstract
Global warming is affecting tree growth and forest productivity, especially in the Northern boreal ecosystems. Wood quality, which is largely determined by anatomical traits of wood, is vital for the forest industry and global carbon sequestration. Cambium activity, wood density, fiber length and microfibril angle are the anatomical traits that determine wood quality, depending on market demands. Within the global warming scenario, a comprehensive understanding of these traits is still lacking and urgently required for both the forest industries and ecological researches. In this review, we identify that large proportions of mature wood, high wood density, longer fiber or tracheid length and low microfibril angles are the anatomical traits closely related with high wood quality. Higher temperatures could trigger onset and ending of cambial cell division, thus affecting wood quality by modulating duration of the growing season. Climate warming could also affect wood quality by impacting earlywood and latewood formation, as well as changing wood density, fiber length and microfibril angle depending on different species and growing conditions. In addition, this review indicates that the anatomical traits involved in wood quality are diverse and depend on the intended use. Improving our knowledge about the underlying mechanisms of how the wood anatomical traits respond to a changing environment with extreme climate events is thus still a crucial topic in the forest sciences. Selection of species and provenances best adapted to climate warming will be necessary to improve quality without sacrificing volume. Studies on wood traits and their relation to climate should therefore focus on a multitude of aspects including the physiology and genetics of boreal tree species.
- Subjects
WOOD density; WOOD quality; FORESTS &; forestry; TAIGA ecology; WOOD anatomy; TAIGAS; EXTREME environments; TREE growth
- Publication
iForest - Biogeosciences & Forestry, 2020, Vol 13, Issue 2, p130
- ISSN
1971-7458
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3832/ifor3230-013