The potential of using xylarium wood samples for wood density calculations: a comparison of approaches for volume measurement

doi:10.3832/ifor0575-004

The potential of using xylarium wood samples for wood density calculations: a comparison of approaches for volume measurement

D Maniatis⁽¹⁾ , L Saint André^(2-3), M Temmerman⁽⁴⁾, Y Malhi⁽¹⁾, H Beeckman⁽⁵⁾

iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry, Volume 4, Issue 4, Pages 150-159 (2011)
doi: https://doi.org/10.3832/ifor0575-004
Published: Aug 11, 2011 - Copyright © 2011 SISEF

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Wood specific gravity (WSG) is an important biometric variable for aboveground biomass calculations in tropical forests. Sampling a sufficient number of trees in remote tropical forests to represent the species and size distribution of a forest to generate information on WSG can be logistically challenging. Several thousands of wood samples exist in xylaria around the world that are easily accessible to researchers. We propose the use of wood samples held in xylaria as a valid and overlooked option. Due to the nature of xylarium samples, determining wood volume to calculate WSG presents several challenges. A description and assessment is provided of five different methods to measure wood sample volume: two solid displacement methods and three liquid displacement methods (hydrostatic methods). Two methods were specifically developed for this paper: the use of laboratory parafilm to wrap the wood samples for the hydrostatic method and two glass microbeads devices for the solid displacement method. We find that the hydrostatic method with samples not wrapped in laboratory parafilm is the most accurate and preferred method. The two methods developed for this study give close agreement with the preferred method (r ² > 0.95). We show that volume can be estimated accurately for xylarium samples with the proposed methods. Additionally, the WSG for 53 species was measured using the preferred method. Significant differences exist between the WSG means of the measured species and the WSG means in an existing density database. Finally, for 4 genera in our dataset, the genus-level WSG average is representative of the species-level WSG average.

Keywords

Wood specific gravity, Aboveground biomass, Dry xylarium samples, Tropical forests, Congo basin forest

Authors’ address

(1)

Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, OX1 3QY Oxford (UK)

(2)

CIRAD, UMR Eco & Sols, Ecologie Fonctionnelle, Biogéochimie des Sols & Agroécosystèmes, place Viala, F-34060 Montpellier (France)

(3)

INRA, UR BEF - Biogéochimie des Ecosystèmes Forestiers, F-54280, Champenoux (France)

(4)

Walloon Agricultural Research Centre (CRA-W), chaussée de Namur 146, B-5030 Gembloux (Belgium)

(5)

Laboratory for Wood Biology and Xylarium, Royal Museum for Central Africa, Leuvense Steenweg 13, B-3080 Tervuren (Belgium)

Corresponding author

D Maniatis
danae.maniatis@gmail.com

Citation

Maniatis D, Saint André L, Temmerman M, Malhi Y, Beeckman H (2011). The potential of using xylarium wood samples for wood density calculations: a comparison of approaches for volume measurement. iForest 4: 150-159. - doi: 10.3832/ifor0575-004

Academic Editor

Marco Borghetti

Paper history

Received: Sep 15, 2010
Accepted: May 16, 2011

First online: Aug 11, 2011
Publication Date: Aug 11, 2011
Publication Time: 2.90 months

Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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