Version 1
: Received: 29 February 2024 / Approved: 29 February 2024 / Online: 1 March 2024 (10:31:25 CET)
Version 2
: Received: 20 October 2024 / Approved: 20 October 2024 / Online: 21 October 2024 (10:38:47 CEST)
How to cite:
Wieloch, T. Shining a New Light on the Classical Concepts of Carbon-Isotope Dendrochronology. Preprints2024, 2024030014. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202403.0014.v2
Wieloch, T. Shining a New Light on the Classical Concepts of Carbon-Isotope Dendrochronology. Preprints 2024, 2024030014. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202403.0014.v2
Wieloch, T. Shining a New Light on the Classical Concepts of Carbon-Isotope Dendrochronology. Preprints2024, 2024030014. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202403.0014.v2
APA Style
Wieloch, T. (2024). Shining a New Light on the Classical Concepts of Carbon-Isotope Dendrochronology. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202403.0014.v2
Chicago/Turabian Style
Wieloch, T. 2024 "Shining a New Light on the Classical Concepts of Carbon-Isotope Dendrochronology" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202403.0014.v2
Abstract
Retrospective information about plant ecophysiology and the climate system are key inputs in Earth system and vegetation models. Dendrochronology provides such information with large spatiotemporal coverage, and carbon isotope analysis across tree-ring series is among the most advanced dendrochronological tools. For the past seventy years, this analysis was performed on whole molecules and, to this day, 13C discrimination during carbon assimilation is invoked to explain isotope variation and associated climate signals. Recently, however, it was reported that tree-ring glucose exhibits multiple isotope signals at the intramolecular level (see companion paper). Here, I estimated the signals’ contribution to whole-molecule isotope variation and found that downstream processes in leaf and stem metabolism each introduce more variation than carbon assimilation. Moreover, downstream processes introduce most of the climate information. These findings are inconsistent with the classical concepts/practices of carbon-isotope dendrochronology. More importantly, intramolecular tree-ring isotope analysis promises novel insights into forest metabolism and the climate of the past.
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
