The GenTree Dendroecological Collection, tree-ring and wood density data from seven tree species across Europe

Elisabet Martínez‐Sancho ,Christoph Hartleitner ,Arnaud Jouineau ,Guillaume Bodineau ,Lars Opgenoorth ,Cristina C Bastías ,Nicolas Mariotte ,Kurt Ramskogler ,Marc Villar ,Agathe Hurel ,Alan Gray ,Silvia Matesanz ,Célia Michotey ,Raquel Benavides ,Christophe Plomion ,Birte Pakull ,Claudio Grefen ,Eduardo Notivol ,Florian Knutzen ,Tor Myking ,Outi Savolainen ,Mirko Liesebach ,Fernando Valladares ,Martin Lascoux ,Mehdi Pringarbe ,José Alberto Ramírez‐Valiente ,Santiago C González‐Martínez ,José Manuel Barrio ,Frédéric Bernier ,Andrea Piotti ,Catherine Bastien ,Grégoire Le-Provost ,Francesca Bagnoli ,Dominique Veisse ,Norbert Turion ,Sandro Morganti ,Marianne Corréard ,Sonja Kujala ,Bárbara Carvalho ,Georg Von Arx ,Annie Raffin ,Pascal Milesi ,Juan J Robledo‐Arnuncio ,Olivier Gilg ,Jean-Paul Charpentier ,Anna‐Maria Farsakoglou ,Marlène Lefebvre ,Christian Rellstab ,Félix Gugerli ,Vincent Lejeune ,Stephen Cavers ,Silvio Schueler ,Ermioni Malliarou ,В Л Семериков ,Bruno Fady ,Katrin Heer ,Florence Courdier ,Filippos Aravanopoulos ,Darius Danusevičius ,Ilaria Spanu ,Lenka Slámová ,Benjamin Dauphin ,Johan Westin ,Tanja Pyhäjärvi ,Mari Mette Tollefsrud ,Camilla Avanzi ,Evangelos Barbas ,José Climent ,Katri Kärkkäinen ,Ricardo Alı́a ,Giovanni G Vendramin ,Jean Thévenet ,Mariaceleste Labriola ,Patrick Fonti

doi:10.1038/s41597-019-0340-y

Abstract

The dataset presented here was collected by the GenTree project (EU-Horizon 2020), which aims to improve the use of forest genetic resources across Europe by better understanding how trees adapt to their local environment. This dataset of individual tree-core characteristics including ring-width series and whole-core wood density was collected for seven ecologically and economically important European tree species: silver birch (Betula pendula), European beech (Fagus sylvatica), Norway spruce (Picea abies), European black poplar (Populus nigra), maritime pine (Pinus pinaster), Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), and sessile oak (Quercus petraea). Tree-ring width measurements were obtained from 3600 trees in 142 populations and whole-core wood density was measured for 3098 trees in 125 populations. This dataset covers most of the geographical and climatic range occupied by the selected species. The potential use of it will be highly valuable for assessing ecological and evolutionary responses to environmental conditions as well as for model development and parameterization, to predict adaptability under climate change scenarios.

Highlights

Background & SummaryTree rings are an important archive of individual life history variation with a large range of applications across both natural and social sciences
In their annual growth rings, trees chronologically record the effect of any factor – ranging from local to global scale – that directly or indirectly affects radial growth processes[1]
The most important archive of tree-ring data worldwide is the International Tree-Ring Data Bank (ITRDB11). It has more than 4250 centrally-held datasets of 226 tree species from all continents, except Antarctica[12]

Summary

Introduction

Background & SummaryTree rings are an important archive of individual life history variation with a large range of applications across both natural and social sciences. Large datasets from tree-ring series sampled across wide geographical ranges have been used in a broad range of studies, e.g. to infer climate variability[2,3,4], reconstruct variation in streamflow[5], investigate processes affecting forest dynamics[6,7], identify the origin of wood used in ancient buildings[8], and date historical tools and instruments[9,10]. Most of these tree-ring datasets were obtained following classical dendrochronological protocols, which usually aim to maximize the climatic signals recorded in the ring-width series by sampling climatically stressed and old populations[1].

Results

Conclusion