Comparison of Wood Density and Water Content Between Dry Evergreen and Dry Deciduous Forest Trees in Central Cambodia

Abstract

We compared wood density (WD) and water content (WC) between a dry evergreen forest (DEF) and dry deciduous forest (DDF) in central Cambodia. Wood core samples of 53 species from DEF and 54 species from DDF were collected. Average WD and WC in all species were similar between DEF (0.64 g/cm 3 of WD; 0.40 g/cm 3 of WC) and DDF (0.64 g/cm 3 of WD; 0.42 g/cm 3 of WC), although the average WC of five tree species that appeared in both forest types was higher in DDF than that in DEF. Tree size effects on WD and WC were negligible in both DEF and DDF. Intraspecific differences of those effects on WD and WC were also not observed in major canopy species in DDF and DEF, except for WD of Shorea obtusa in DDF, whose value increased with increasing tree diameter. Tree life-forms such as canopy, subcanopy, and understory species did not affect WD and WC in both forest types, although canopy gap species in DEF showed the smallest WD among the life-forms. The relationships between WD and WC in DEF and DDF were negatively correlated, and both regression equations did not differ between forest types. Overall, there were little differences on average WD and WC between DEF and DDF trees, even though their species composition and tree ecological traits were significantly different between forest types in central Cambodia.Discipline: Forestry and forest products Additional key words: Biomass, plant functional group, REDD+, wood specific gravity, Dipterocarpaceae IntroductionTropical dry forests occur in the Indochina Peninsula, which experiences severe dry spells, sometimes lasting several months without rainfall. In this region, there are two distinct types of dry forests in lowland areas (Ashton 2014, Hozumi et al. 1969, Ogawa et al. 1965, namely dry evergreen forests (DEF) and dry deciduous forests (DDF). Cambodia is located in the center of the peninsula and still maintains relatively high forest coverage (59.1% in 2006) compared with adjacent countries in the same This paper reports the results obtained in the project on "Estimation and simulation of carbon stock change of tropical forest in Asia

Wood day capacitance is related to water content, wood density, and anatomy across 30 temperate tree species

“…WD, a direct outcome of total lumen and wall fractions, was weakly or not related to fresh water content indices (Figure 6d and Figure S7d in Data S1), similar to previous studies of tropical and temperate angiosperms, representing a combined total of 573 species (Kenzo, Sano, Yoneda, & Chann, 2017;Kenzo, Tomoaki, Yuta, Joseph Jawa, & Sophal, 2016;Longuetaud et al, , 2017E. Suzuki, 1999).…”

Selection of dipterocarp species for enrichment planting in a secondary tropical rainforest

“…wood density and stiffness, which can be measured with pilodyn and FAKOPP, respectively, are used to measure the wood quality of solid and fiber products (Pilai et al 2013;Defo et al 2016;Ramananantoandro et al 2016). Our research showed that various dipterocarp species showed significantly different PP (Table 3) because of the differences in their phylogenetic group (Kenzo et al 2017) and the light requirement for their growth (King et al 2005;Van Gelder et al 2006;Rana et al 2009;Ramananantoandro et al 2016). The highest PP was observed in S. dasyphylla, S. leprosula, and S. parvifolia, which formed a group of light-demanding and light-hardwood dipterocarp species.…”

Impact of Severe Drought during the Strong 2015/2016 El Nino on the Phenology and Survival of Secondary Dry Dipterocarp Species in Western Thailand

“…Furthermore, the size of DDF species has no effect on wood density, except S. obtusa Wall. that has a positive relationship between tree diameter and wood density [29]. Thus, drought resistance in DDF might be the results of the different strategies adopted in terms of the hydraulic and leaf phenology.…”

“…Therefore, high wood density species tends to have a relatively higher drought resistance compared to the low wood species [27,28]. In addition, a few studies in TDFs have indicated that leaf phenology is related to wood density [27,29]. However, the relationships between leaf phenology, wood density and its resistance to drought have not yet been investigated in the secondary DDF.…”