 |
Project Results |
Team Philippines found 40 tree species with distinct growth rings (TSDGR) out of 226 tree species (TS) investigated; Team Malaysia 6 TSDGR / 13 TS; Team Thailand 28 TSDGR / 91 TS; Team India 12 TSDGR / 29 TS; and, Team Sri Lanka 16 TSDGR / 65 TS. For the whole SSEADENDRO, a total of 104 TSDR’s out of 424 TS has been identified.
The next step is to find which of the 104 TSDR’s crossmatch at least and better if these also crossdate. The term crossdate applies to a condition when wood samples taken from different individual trees statistically correlate with one another. If this is satisfied, the set of trees is analogous to the set of different musical instruments that independently deliver their respective rhythms (e.g. ring variabilities) in accordance with one music pulse (e.g. climate) over period of time. A subset of the 104 TSDR’s should have to be proven to crossmatch or crossdate before they will be considered useful for Indomalayan dendrochronology and its various applications.
Below are some comparisons of wood rings with past climate records.
Graph above clearly shows crossmatch between the ring series of Benguet pine Pinus kesiya and 40 year old teak Tectona grandis grown in plantation at Carranglan, Nueva Ecija. The story is that when both pine and teak have wide rings they coincide with La Niña events and conversely when they have narrow rings they are timed during El Niño events.
Northern Luzon pine and teak ring series synchronously follow the El Niño and La Niña pulses. The Indian ring series of Albizia lebbeck and Dalbergia latifolia were superimposed. Certain agreement between the Indian and the Philippine tree ring widths is apparent although this should be substantiated by more tree ring data-points spread across the Indomalayan region. Crossdating corewood samples in the existing SSEADENDRO xylarias is just one stepping stone. From this leads to more studies that would shed light to the Tropical Asia Monsoon. This serves as springboard to a better designed collaborative dendroclimatological research using the expanded array of tree species that allow greater data points. Greater data points, in turn, enable greater resolution of information leading to superior modeling of climate in the region.
| << Objectives | Back to main project page || |