Dendrochronology and wood anatomy developed for decades as two independent scientific fields. It was only in the last decade that it was made clear that the dimension of time is the fourth dimension for both sciences and that it was demonstrated that wood anatomy and dendrochronology are perfect...

Objectives: Although more than half of the Earth's landmass is covered by non-forest vegetation and forests only account for ca. 20%, the majority of wood anatomical and dendrochronological studies still centre on trees and their timber products of secondary meristem growth. Comprehensive...

Warming-induced biological and ecological responses have been reported from high-northern latitude sites, where changes in dwarf shrub communities translate into complex vegetation-climate feedbacks. Most of the available Arctic tree-ring evidence is, however, restricted to a limited number of...

Tree-ring series from living trees near the timberline or timbers buried in the surroundings are exceptionally valuable both for climate reconstruction and investigations of the consequences of climate change to ecosystems. This paper is a critical assessment of the past and potential contributions ...

The type of samples most commonly used in dendro sciences are increment cores of conifers. These cores allow for an easy determination and measurement of ring-width variations over long time periods. For wood anatomical analyses, the cores have to be split into pieces to enable the preparation of...

The technical definition of 'wood' is well accepted, but its botanical understanding remains vague. Different degrees and amounts of lignification in plants and their imprecise description, together with a conceptually doubtful life form catalog including trees, shrubs and herbs further complicate...

The variability of wood anatomical features in the rings of trees and shrubs is known to be dependent on multifaceted environmental parameters. The ability to determine anatomical variations over longer time periods as decades or centuries is a step forward in dendroecological and...

Three hundred and seventy-seven tree-ring width site chronologies including all eight principal forest tree species within Central Europe (5° to 15°E; 43° to 53°N) are expressed as Cropper-values and mapped using a Geographical Information System (here after referred to as GIS). Spatial...

Collaboration between Swiss and Russian institutes for dendroclimatology is outlined, and a sampling network for boreal forests in the northern hemisphere is described. Data are presented on growth ring width and climate (since 600 AD).

Supplementing broader-scale dendroecological approaches with high-resolution wood anatomical analyses constitutes a useful technique to assess spatiotemporal patterns of climate-induced growth responses in circumpolar tundra vegetation. A systematic evaluation of dendrochronological and wood...