Small fluctuations in cell wall thickness in pine and spruce xylem: Signal from cambium?

Abstract

In the conifer tree rings, each tracheid goes through three phases of differentiation before becoming an element of the stem water-conducting structure: division, extension, and cell wall thickening. These phases are long-lasting and separated temporally, especially cell wall thickening. Despite the numerous lines of evidence that external conditions affect the rate of growth processes and the final anatomical dimensions during the respective phases of tracheid differentiation, the influence of the environment on anatomical dimensions during the cell division phase (cambial activity) has not yet been experimentally confirmed. In this communication, we provide indirect evidence of such an effect through observations of the small fluctuations in the latewood cell wall thickness of rapidly growing tree rings, which exhibit a high cell production rate (more than 0.4 cells per day on average). Such small fluctuations in the cell wall thickness cannot be driven by variations in external factors during the secondary wall deposition phase, since this phase overlaps for several tens of latewood cells in the rings of fast-growing trees due to its long duration.