Preliminary results of the monitoring of the stem growth of the Cordilleran cypress (Austrocedrus chilensis) along it´s continuum area of distribution in Patagonia

DIEZ, J.P.; DE PAZ, M.; SERGENT, ANNE-SOPHIE, ; VARELA, S. A.,; DALLA-SALDA G., ; MARTINEZ-MEIER A.

Bariloche

Conferencia; International Conference TOPWOOD + LIA Forestia. Adapting forest ecosystems and wood products to biotic and abiotic stress; 2019

INTA,INRA, UE

It is relevant for forest ecology to assess and quantify the response of trees to climate variations. This allows the possibility to incorporate in forest management new concepts for the comprehensive approach in relation to the maintenance of the forests productivity capacity, without affecting the potential capacity of adaptation to abiotic events.The process of wood formation in terms of quantity and quality can be affected by different factors: environmental conditions, availability of resources, silvicultural treatments, genetic pool and/or cambial age. The increment of the stem is the result of the cellular division of xylem and phloem growth, as result of the cambial activity, determined by the environment in which temperature and water play a key role. The patterns of increment and stem contraction are linked with the water balance to which the trees are exposed during the growing season. The objective of this work is to present the preliminary results of the growth monitoring and stem dimension variations of 26-point dendrometers, placed in the cordilleran cypress, an endemic species of the Patagonia Andean Forest strongly affected by the process of global change, in its area distribution. Growth dynamics along the distribution area of the species in Argentina in relation to the environmental variables, will allow to infer the causalities and to identify the climatic events that propitiate it.