Wood anatomical spectra to reconstruct vegetation, a test-case for the axial parenchyma in the Kivu-Congo watershed
1999
Beeckman, H. (Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren (Belgium). Lab. for Wood Biology and Xylarium)
Lignified tissues are considered as important data loggers for environmental variables. Decoding of this stored information depends on xylotomy. Both high resolution (e.g. dendrochronology) and low resolution (anthracology) climatological evaluations are made possible by wood anatomy. Low resolution methods rely mainly on identification of botanical taxa in an archaeological wood or charcoal assortment and the estimation of their ecological indicator value. The wood anatomical identification process could nevertheless be seriously hampered by deficiencies of diagnostic features, lack of reference samples and observational constraints relative to small wood or charcoal fragments. Identification obstacles could be avoided by basing environmental reconstruction attempts directly on knowledge about tendencies in wood anatomical features related to different vegetation types. The concept of wood anatomical spectrum is introduced as the characteristic distribution of wood anatomical features of a certain vegetation type. Partial wood anatomical spectra are established for the axial parenchyma and for four forest types from the Kivu-Congo watershed: the foothill forest (750-1200 m), the transition forest (1200-1600 m), the mountain forest (1600-2000 m) and the forest of high altitude (2000 m). The four spectra are statistically different. Scalariform/reticulate parenchyma is almost exclusively present in the foothill forest, aliform parenchyma is typical for the transitional forests and diffused parenchyma for the montane forest and the forest of high altitude.
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