Wood specific gravity variations within tree trunk: the case study of Legumes representatives in French Guiana

Romain Lehnebach , H. Morel , Nadine Amusant (1) , Sébastien Griffon (2) , Jean-François Barczi (2) , Jacques Beauchêne (1) , Eric A. Nicolini (2)

1 UMR ECOFOG - Ecologie des forêts de Guyane
2 UMR AMAP - Botanique et Modélisation de l'Architecture des Plantes et des Végétations

Over the past decade, much attention has been devoted to the development of forest biomass estimation methods at a stand scale, leading to the establishment of allometric models (Chave et al., 2014). These allometric equations use a unique wood specific gravity value (WSG) per species, but neglect the within tree variations of WSG found by others (Wiemann & Williamson, 1989). The main objectives of this study are (1) to illustrate the diversity of radial (from pith to bark) and longitudinal (from bottom to top) patterns of WSG variation within and between species, (2) to highlight different trends of WSG radial variations and the possible misinterpretations of these trends due to the effect of heartwood and (3) to link these variations and patterns to the successional status of the species (from pioneer to sciaphilic species). We sampled 33 small trees (10

Mots clés: Wood Specific Gravity; Tropical tree species; Biomass estimation; successional status; Xplo software

Domaines: Biodiversité et Ecologie

Romain Lehnebach, H. Morel, Nadine Amusant, Sébastien Griffon, Jean-François Barczi, et al.. Wood specific gravity variations within tree trunk: the case study of Legumes representatives in French Guiana. Wood sciences underpinning tropical ecology and management. International closing symposium of the XYLAREDD project., International Association of Wood Anatomists (IAWA). Leyde, NLD. International Union of Forest Research Organisations (IUFRO)., May 2015, Tervuren, Belgium. 23 p. ⟨hal-01188894⟩