Piermattei et al. (2025) Editorial: Exploring wood structure and tree-ring dynamics in ecological research

Identification

• Journal: Frontiers in Plant Science
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-11-27
• Authors: Ignacio García‐González, Fabio Gennaretti, Marta Górska, Luís Silva, Alan Crivellaro
• DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1736889

Research Groups

• Department of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences, Università degli Studi di Torino, Grugliasco, Italy
• Forest Biometrics Laboratory, Faculty of Forestry, “Stefan cel Mare” University of Suceava, Suceava, Romania
• Institute of Agrarian Biodiversity and Rural Development (IBADER) - Department of Botany, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Lugo, Spain
• Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy
• Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Poznan´ University of Life Sciences, Poznan´ , Poland
• Department of Biology, Universidade dos Ac¸ores, Ponta Delgada, Portugal

Short Summary

This editorial synthesizes eight contributions exploring wood structure and tree-ring dynamics, demonstrating the ecological breadth and methodological depth of quantitative wood anatomy in understanding plant responses to environmental change. It highlights wood as a climate-sensitive archive and showcases advancements in analytical tools and protocols.

Objective

• To integrate advances in wood anatomy and tree-ring dynamics to deepen the understanding of ecological processes and plant responses under environmental change.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Global, encompassing diverse environments from the Mediterranean, subtropical Asia, North America, and the northern treeline.
• Temporal Scale: Intra-annual to multi-decadal/centennial (reconstructing past climates and long-term anatomical chronologies).

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Quantitative Wood Anatomy (QWA), dendrochronology, xylogenesis, and a machine learning framework (ROXAS AI) for automated analysis.
• Data sources: Wood anatomical traits (e.g., lumen diameter, intra-annual density fluctuations, vessel architecture), leaf traits, surface imaging, microsections, and X-ray computed tomography of tree and shrub samples.

Main Results

• Wood anatomical traits effectively capture fine-scale climatic variability and plant responses across diverse ecosystems, including links between lumen diameter and precipitation/temperature, "blue rings" indicating cooling events, influence of rainfall on intra-annual density fluctuations, and accelerated xylogenesis due to warming.
• Significant interspecific divergence in functional traits (e.g., vessel architecture, leaf venation) underpins adaptive strategies to microclimatic stress, expanding the scope of wood anatomical ecology to humid, non-limiting environments.
• Methodological advancements include detailed protocols for consistent wood sectioning, systematic comparisons of imaging techniques (surface imaging, microsections, X-ray computed tomography), and the development of AI-assisted tools (ROXAS AI) for automated, scalable analysis.

Contributions

• Provides a comprehensive synthesis showcasing the enduring relevance and expanding horizons of wood anatomical studies in ecological research.
• Demonstrates the versatility of wood structure as a climate-sensitive archive for detecting signals of water stress, temperature extremes, and growth resilience across a wide range of global environments and species.
• Advances the methodological foundations of quantitative wood anatomy through new protocols, imaging comparisons, and AI-driven tools, reducing analysis time and expertise requirements for broader adoption and larger-scale syntheses.
• Highlights promising future directions, including the integration of QWA with other proxies, expansion into underrepresented ecosystems/taxa, and collaborative development of open datasets and analytical tools.

Funding

• Not specified for this editorial.

Citation

@article{Piermattei2025Editorial,
  author = {Piermattei, Alma and García‐González, Ignacio and Gennaretti, Fabio and Górska, Marta and Silva, Luís and Crivellaro, Alan},
  title = {Editorial: Exploring wood structure and tree-ring dynamics in ecological research},
  journal = {Frontiers in Plant Science},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.3389/fpls.2025.1736889},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2025.1736889}
}