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Longevity and growth of Acacia tortilis; insights from (14)C content and anatomy of wood

BACKGROUND: Acacia tortilis is a keystone species across arid ecosystems in Africa and the Middle East. Yet, its life-history, longevity and growth are poorly known, and consequently ongoing changes in tree populations cannot be managed in an appropriate manner. In other arid areas parenchymatic ban...

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Autores principales: Andersen, Gidske L, Krzywinski, Knut
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2007
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1929062/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17573964
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6785-7-4
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author Andersen, Gidske L
Krzywinski, Knut
author_facet Andersen, Gidske L
Krzywinski, Knut
author_sort Andersen, Gidske L
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Acacia tortilis is a keystone species across arid ecosystems in Africa and the Middle East. Yet, its life-history, longevity and growth are poorly known, and consequently ongoing changes in tree populations cannot be managed in an appropriate manner. In other arid areas parenchymatic bands marking growth zones in the wood have made dendrochronological studies possible. The possibilities for using pre- and post-bomb (14)C content in wood samples along with the presence of narrow marginal parenchymatic bands in the wood is therefore tested to gain further insight into the age, growth and growth conditions of A. tortilis in the hyper-arid Eastern Desert of Egypt. RESULTS: Based on age scenarios and the Gompertz growth equation, the age of trees studied seems to be from 200 up to 650 years. Annual radial growth estimated from calibrated dates based on the post-bomb (14)C content of samples is up to 2.4 mm, but varies both spatially and temporally. Parenchymatic bands are not formed regularly. The correlation in band pattern among trees is poor, both among and within sites. CONCLUSION: The post-bomb (14)C content of A. tortilis wood gives valuable information on tree growth and is required to assess the age scenario approach applied here. This approach indicates high longevities and slow growth of trees. Special management measures should therefore be taken at sites where the trend in tree population size is negative. The possibilities for dendrochronological studies based on A. tortilis from the Eastern Desert are poor. However, marginal parenchymatic bands can give insight into fine scale variation in growth conditions and the past management of trees.
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spelling pubmed-19290622007-07-21 Longevity and growth of Acacia tortilis; insights from (14)C content and anatomy of wood Andersen, Gidske L Krzywinski, Knut BMC Ecol Research Article BACKGROUND: Acacia tortilis is a keystone species across arid ecosystems in Africa and the Middle East. Yet, its life-history, longevity and growth are poorly known, and consequently ongoing changes in tree populations cannot be managed in an appropriate manner. In other arid areas parenchymatic bands marking growth zones in the wood have made dendrochronological studies possible. The possibilities for using pre- and post-bomb (14)C content in wood samples along with the presence of narrow marginal parenchymatic bands in the wood is therefore tested to gain further insight into the age, growth and growth conditions of A. tortilis in the hyper-arid Eastern Desert of Egypt. RESULTS: Based on age scenarios and the Gompertz growth equation, the age of trees studied seems to be from 200 up to 650 years. Annual radial growth estimated from calibrated dates based on the post-bomb (14)C content of samples is up to 2.4 mm, but varies both spatially and temporally. Parenchymatic bands are not formed regularly. The correlation in band pattern among trees is poor, both among and within sites. CONCLUSION: The post-bomb (14)C content of A. tortilis wood gives valuable information on tree growth and is required to assess the age scenario approach applied here. This approach indicates high longevities and slow growth of trees. Special management measures should therefore be taken at sites where the trend in tree population size is negative. The possibilities for dendrochronological studies based on A. tortilis from the Eastern Desert are poor. However, marginal parenchymatic bands can give insight into fine scale variation in growth conditions and the past management of trees. BioMed Central 2007-06-15 /pmc/articles/PMC1929062/ /pubmed/17573964 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6785-7-4 Text en Copyright © 2007 Andersen and Krzywinski; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Andersen, Gidske L
Krzywinski, Knut
Longevity and growth of Acacia tortilis; insights from (14)C content and anatomy of wood
title Longevity and growth of Acacia tortilis; insights from (14)C content and anatomy of wood
title_full Longevity and growth of Acacia tortilis; insights from (14)C content and anatomy of wood
title_fullStr Longevity and growth of Acacia tortilis; insights from (14)C content and anatomy of wood
title_full_unstemmed Longevity and growth of Acacia tortilis; insights from (14)C content and anatomy of wood
title_short Longevity and growth of Acacia tortilis; insights from (14)C content and anatomy of wood
title_sort longevity and growth of acacia tortilis; insights from (14)c content and anatomy of wood
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1929062/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17573964
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6785-7-4
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