Home – Home – Jornals – Contemporary Problems of Ecology 2025 number 4

Intra-annual climate variations and their effects on radial growth of trees have received increasing attention in recent decades. Tracheidograms have been widely used for the analysis of the xylem cell parameters varying over the course of a year. This paper describes the steps for creating tracheidograms based on high-resolution images using boundary identification methods through artificial neural networks (ANNs), computer vision library (OpenCV) and tracheidogram libraries (RAPTOR, tracheideR). The aim was to identify climate-related features of intra-annual xylem growth of Scots pine Pinus sylvestris L. on Sredny Island, Keret Archipelago, White Sea. To achieve the objective, parameters of 43,754 xylem cells were identified for 7 trees, of which 23,091 cells were grouped into radial profiles for the period from 2009 to 2018. The results indicate a relationship between precipitation from May to August and xylem cell parameters (lumen diameter along the radial axis, lumen perimeter, cell wall thickness, lumen area, lumen diameter to cell wall thickness ratio, lumen area to lumen perimeter ratio). Areas under tracheidogram curves were calculated as an integral metric of annual ring structure. Pearson′s correlation coefficient was estimated between these metrics and average temperature and precipitation from May to August. The strongest relationships identified were as follows: an inverse relationship between the amount of precipitation and the cell wall thickness, a direct relationship between temperature and the cell wall thickness, and a negative relationship between temperature and the lumen size.