Abstract We explore whether a growth-ring analysis can produce additional information about carbon budgets in tropical forests. Such forests are characterized by a high number of species and by trees that rarely have anatomically distinct annual growth rings, which hampers the application of dendrochronological tools in carbon balance assessments in the tropics. We use forest inventory data and archived annual diameter measurements from the Luki Biosphere Reserve in the southwestern margin of the Congo Basin forest massif. In addition, dated wood data are available from the same location thanks to tag nail traces that allow for the measurement of growth increments over a period of 66 years. We find that precise increment measurements based on dated wood are advisable for small subsets of many less abundant species and for functional species groups characterized by slow growth. The dated wood approach shows that many understory trees with non-periodical rings remain in a steady state for long periods of time. A dated wood approach is advisable for studies of growth trajectories of individual trees that might be of importance for carbon assessments in degraded forests.

中文翻译：

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改进雨林碳的评估：来自重复直径测量和过时木材的补充证据

摘要 我们探讨了年轮分析是否可以产生关于热带森林碳收支的额外信息。此类森林的特点是物种数量多，而且树木在解剖学上很少有明显不同的年轮，这阻碍了树木年代学工具在热带地区的碳平衡评估中的应用。我们使用来自刚果盆地森林地块西南边缘的 Luki 生物圈保护区的森林清单数据和存档的年度直径测量值。此外，由于可以测量 66 年期间的生长增量，因此可以从同一位置获得过时的木材数据。我们发现，基于过时木材的精确增量测量对于许多不太丰富的物种的小子集和以缓慢生长为特征的功能物种组是可取的。过时的木材方法表明，许多具有非周期性年轮的林下树木长时间保持稳定状态。对于可能对退化森林中的碳评估很重要的单个树木的生长轨迹的研究，建议采用过时的木材方法。