What is Dendrochronology?
Dendrochronology is compounded from the following words dendro meaning wood, chrono meaning time, and logo meaning study. Literally it means the study of the series of events in time by examining the annual growth rings of the wood of trees. READ MORE
What's the project about?
The present APN Project is located in the Philippines (Western Luzon and Palawan), Malaysia (Sabah), Thailand (in northeastern part), India (in Western Ghats) and Sri Lanka (Central). |
A group of dendrochronologists from the Tree Ring Laboratory, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) of Columbia University, New York, USA (Cook et al, 2004) found that pines (Pinus kesiya and Pinus merkusii) and teak (Tectona grandis) are useful in studying past climates in the Indomalayan region, particularly in the drier parts of India, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines (Northwestern Luzon) and Indonesia (Central Sumatra and Central-East Java). However, other Indomalayan areas are not represented because teak and pines do not naturally grow there. This limits the application of dendrochronology, hence the rest of the Indomalayan region cannot be studied dendrochronologically.
“Reconnaissance for trees with distinct growth rings” other than pines and teak is therefore the main objective of the present APN Project entitled “Collaborative Studies in Tropical Asian Dendrochronology: Addressing Challenges in Climatology and Forest Ecology” by SSEADENDRO or scientists from USA, UPLB (Philippines), UMS (Malaysia), KUFF (Thailand), IITM (India) and UPSL (Sri Lanka). The Project is important because it will extend data points beyond teak and pine stands, like in wet portions of India, Indochina and all archipelagic Southeast Asia in both dry and wet areas.
Activities of the Project were the following:
- Training of the principal investigator on dendrochronology in LDEO
- Putting up of a tree ring laboratory in the Philippines
- A first collaborators’ meeting held in Bangkok, Thailand to standardize methodology to conduct reconnaissance and to write a Primer
- Reconnaissance fieldwork in India, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Sri Lanka
- A second collaborators’ meeting to discuss the publication of results
- The setting up of xylaria*.
*A xylaria is where corewood samples are labeled, catalogued and systematically filed for safe-keeping and easy retrieval when used by dendrochronologists.