Hi Lukasz,

Please, try to follow:

Van Mantgem P.J., Stephenson N., 2004. Does coring contribute to tree mortality? Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 34: 2394-2398.

Shigo A.L., 1985. Compartmentalization of decay in trees. Scientific American, 252: 96-103.

Meyer W.H., Hayward S.B., 1936. Effect of increment boring on Douglas fir. Journal of Forestry, 34: 867-869.

Lorenz R.C., 1944. Discolorations and decay resulting from increment borings in hardwoods. Journal of Forestry, 42: 37-43.

Heptings G.H., Roth E.R., Sleeth B., 1949. Discolorations and decay from increment borings. Journal of Foresty,  47: 366-370.

Dujesiefken D., Rhaesa A., Eckstein D., Stobbe H., 1999. Tree wound reacttions of differently treated boreholes. Journal of Arboriculture 25: 113-117.

and some others.

Generally I can conculde that the coring is not certainly helpfull for tree, it is a significant deep wound, but it is not tragedy as well. Tree has own mechanisms how to heal this wound. We have some more experience with this issue.

Have a nice day,

 Pavel

Thank you Pavel,

these examples should help to add to my discussion with the Polish Ministry of Environment which is in charge of national parks in Poland. It is not a trivial issue when you apply for a permission to enter strictly protected areas. However, I think the ecosystem response for dendrochronological coring is minimal. This is of course the matter of scale.

Best wishes,

Lukasz

This question has been asked many times in the ITRDBFOR listserv, a forum for dendrochronologists.  Generally speaking, there are greater potential consequences for angiosperm trees compared to conifers.  You may find a search of the archives useful, see link below.

Dr. Kevin T. Smith of US Forest Service Research has provided many helpful responses to these questions. 

https://itrdbfor.org/wws/arc/itrdbfor

Thank you for this suggestion. I did not know this web page.

Have a good day,

Lukasz

 Hi Lukasz,

Your question is exactly the kind of serious concern that we set out to answer in our review that you mention (Tsen et al. 2015). Sadly we  found few real solutions that allow researchers to core trees without expecting at least some negative consequences for the tree. As the review is quite long here is a direct response to your questions.

Q "I'm looking for a paper with solid conclusions about any negative impact of increment bore coring (fundamental dendrochronology tool) on cored trees and/or forest ecosystems.”

A   The papers by Wunder et al., 2011 and 2013 offer encouraging long term (40 year) population information for Norway spruce. These studies and the studies conducted by Van Mantgem 2004 are commonly cited to regulatory authorities. These citations, however, are all too often extended to request coring on angiosperm trees, which the above authors themselves warn is not appropriate given the differing wood structure and physiology of the two groups.

From our review we found from looking at all of the literature that we could access across multiple languages and over a century of research, that there are NO solid conclusions regarding the expected levels of damage to trees. Certain groups of trees have been observed to have lower rates of destructive internal damage and pathogenic exterior responses. We could generalise and say that most conifers have been shown to accrue low damage (except for one or two conjectural cases for spruce) VS angiosperms which can accrue low, medium and high damage. The contentions regarding ring-porous taxa being more resistant that diffuse porous taxa to internal decay is a bit difficult to uphold as Juglans nigra (listed as a ring porous species) had some of the longest reported extents of internal decay. In our view, there are too few datasets available to make any kind of informed judgement. A lot of authors have none-the-less continued to repeat the claim, originally made by Hepting (1949) but have not added any well replicated quantitative evidence to support it.

As you are no doubt aware, the problem is that total damage to tree tissues is dependent upon a number of genetic, environmental and age related factors. Almost all published studies show high rates of variability in the negative responses of trees. Quite a few authors imply (without hard data) that the most healthy or dominant individuals show less decay streaking in heartwoods. It is likely that a combination of negative factors can lead to a poor outcome, such as if the tree is stressed or at a senescent life stage. Similarly disease can enter the core sites, as outbreaks of wood-rotting fungi have been described invading core sites. This impact may be overcome or reduced by coring when the fungi are not sporing. The balance of evidence suggests that angiosperms should not be cored while dormant. The literature suggests that conifers are somewhat variable in seasonal response, but it looks like they could have the reverse optimal season. In some cases they accrue less damage in winter.

Q "Do we have any arguments that could support our studies in such zones?”

A     Our review outlines that tree species that are naturally prone to high damage might have higher innate defences against internal trunk damage. Regulatory bodies might view applications to core more positively if you have some background data of trunk-damage/re-sprout recovery vs mortality of your species in question (or some analogous species). I must warn that this contention remains UNTESTED and we were not able to find support across the dataset of species responses that are available relating coring response to successional status.

Hopefully, if you are working in Poland on a conifer (hopefully spruce) you will be fine if you take a careful cautious approach.

In our opinion it would be wise to reconsider coring any trees that might be considered rare or culturally significant and to keep the number of cores per tree to a minimum. Kowol (2001)  pointed out that close proximity trunk wounds often merge between core sites to make extensive external wounds.  Larger surface wounds= larger infection sites.

I hope that helps. If you want more specific information I could recommend you look at our practical guide section in our review. We would ask that you and your colleagues keep an eye on wound development over time in your research to contribute back into the literature so that future researchers have some more hard data to turn to. 

kind regards,

Edward Tsen

Hi Edward,

thank you for this very extensive explanation.

Certainly we are planning to follow your suggestions included in the IBC practical guide. Post coring monitoring is a new idea but we'll try to do it as well. It is difficult to say for how many years but this kind of data would be a valuable contribution to the literature, I suppose.

Probably during our studies we'll be going back to your paper many times! Thank you for your time. Best wishes,

Lukasz

Hi Lukasz,

No problems at all, I’m glad that you found the information useful. Many thanks for considering the documentation of the wound healing outcomes. Any quantitative data that you can get will be a meaningful addition to the literature. Good luck with your study!

Kind regards, Ed