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1. Correcting tree-ring δ13C time series for tree-size effects in eight temperate tree species

   https://doi.org/10.1093/treephys/tpz138  

   Vadeboncoeur, Matthew A ; Jennings, Katie A ; Ouimette, Andrew P ; Asbjornsen, Heidi ( January 2020 , Tree Physiology)

   Cernusak, Lucas (Ed.)

   Abstract Stable carbon isotope ratios (δ13C) in tree rings have been widely used to study changes in intrinsic water-use efficiency (iWUE), sometimes with limited consideration of how C-isotope discrimination is affected by tree height and canopy position. Our goals were to quantify the relationships between tree size or tree microenvironment and wood δ13C for eight functionally diverse temperate tree species in northern New England and to better understand the physical and physiological mechanisms underlying these differences. We collected short increment cores in closed-canopy stands and analyzed δ13C in the most recent 5 years of growth. We also sampled saplings in bothmore »shaded and sun-exposed environments. In closed-canopy stands, we found strong tree-size effects on δ13C, with 3.7–7.2‰ of difference explained by linear regression vs height (0.11–0.28‰ m−1), which in some cases is substantially stronger than the effect reported in previous studies. However, open-grown saplings were often isotopically more similar to large codominant trees than to shade-grown saplings, indicating that light exposure contributes more to the physiological and isotopic differences between small and large trees than does height. We found that in closed-canopy forests, δ13C correlations with diameter at breast height were nonlinear but also strong, allowing a straightforward procedure to correct tree- or stand-scale δ13C-based iWUE chronologies for changing tree size. We demonstrate how to use such data to correct and interpret multi-decadal composite isotope chronologies in both shade-regenerated and open-grown tree cohorts, and we highlight the importance of understanding site history when interpreting δ13C time series.« less
2. The LSM RUM-Tree: A Log Structured Merge R-Tree for Update-intensive Spatial Workloads

   https://doi.org/10.1109/ICDE51399.2021.00238  

   Shin, Jaewoo ; Wang, Jianguo ; Aref, Walid G. ( April 2021 , 2021 IEEE 37th International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE))

   Many applications require update-intensive work-loads on spatial objects, e.g., social-network services and shared-riding services that track moving objects (devices). By buffering insert and delete operations in memory, the Log Structured Merge Tree (LSM) has been used widely in various systems because of its ability to handle insert-intensive workloads. While the focus on LSM has been on key-value stores and their optimizations, there is a need to study how to efficiently support LSM-based secondary indexes. We investigate the augmentation of a main-memory-based memo structure into an LSM secondary index structure to handle update-intensive workloads efficiently. We conduct this study in themore »context of an R-tree-based secondary index. In particular, we introduce the LSM RUM-tree that demonstrates the use of an Update Memo in an LSM-based R-tree to enhance the performance of the R-tree's insert, delete, update, and search operations. The LSM RUM-tree introduces novel strategies to reduce the size of the Update Memo to be a light-weight in-memory structure that is suitable for handling update-intensive workloads without introducing significant over-head. Experimental results using real spatial data demonstrate that the LSM RUM-tree achieves up to 9.6x speedup on update operations and up to 2400x speedup on query processing over the existing LSM R-tree implementations.« less
3. Tree level hydrodynamic approach for resolving aboveground water storage and stomatal conductance and modeling the effects of tree hydraulic strategy: Stomatal Conductance Parameterization

   https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JG003467  

   Mirfenderesgi, Golnazalsadat ; Bohrer, Gil ; Matheny, Ashley M. ; Fatichi, Simone ; de Moraes Frasson, Renato Prata ; Schäfer, Karina V. ( July 2016 , Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences)
4. Different climate sensitivity for radial growth, but uniform for tree-ring stable isotopes along an aridity gradient in Polylepis tarapacana , the world’s highest elevation tree species

   https://doi.org/10.1093/treephys/tpab021  

   Rodriguez-Caton, Milagros ; Andreu-Hayles, Laia ; Morales, Mariano S ; Daux, Valérie ; Christie, Duncan A ; Coopman, Rafael E ; Alvarez, Claudio ; Rao, Mukund Palat ; Aliste, Diego ; Flores, Felipe ; et al ( February 2021 , Tree Physiology)

   Cernusak, Lucas (Ed.)

   Abstract Tree growth is generally considered to be temperature limited at upper elevation treelines, yet climate factors controlling tree growth at semiarid treelines are poorly understood. We explored the influence of climate on stem growth and stable isotopes for Polylepis tarapacana Philipi, the world’s highest elevation tree species, which is found only in the South American Altiplano. We developed tree-ring width index (RWI), oxygen (δ18O) and carbon (δ13C) chronologies for the last 60 years at four P. tarapacana stands located above 4400 m in elevation, along a 500 km latitude aridity gradient. Total annual precipitation decreased from 300 to 200 mm frommore »the northern to the southern sites. We used RWI as a proxy of wood formation (carbon sink) and isotopic tree-ring signatures as proxies of leaf-level gas exchange processes (carbon source). We found distinct climatic conditions regulating carbon sink processes along the gradient. Current growing-season temperature regulated RWI at northern-wetter sites, while prior growing-season precipitation determined RWI at arid southern sites. This suggests that the relative importance of temperature to precipitation in regulating tree growth is driven by site water availability. By contrast, warm and dry growing seasons resulted in enriched tree-ring δ13C and δ18O at all study sites, suggesting that similar climate conditions control carbon-source processes along the gradient. Site-level δ13C and δ18O chronologies were significantly and positively related at all sites, with the strongest relationships among the southern drier stands. This indicates an overall regulation of intercellular carbon dioxide via stomatal conductance for the entire P. tarapacana network, with greater stomatal control when aridity increases. This manuscript also highlights a coupling (decoupling) between physiological processes at leaf level and wood formation as a function of similarities (differences) in their climatic sensitivity. This study contributes to a better understanding and prediction of the response of high-elevation Polylepis woodlands to rapid climate changes and projected drying in the Altiplano.« less
5. Statistical binning leads to profound model violation due to gene tree error incurred by trying to avoid gene tree error

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2019.02.012  

   Adams, Richard H. ; Castoe, Todd A. ( May 2019 , Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution)