Stem respiratory potential in six softwood and four hardwood tree species in the central cascades of Oregon

Mature and old growth trees of varying sapwood thickness were compared with regard to stem respiration. An increment core-based, laboratory method under controlled temperature was used to measure tissue-level respiration (termed respiratory potential) of ten different tree species. Bark (dead outer and live inner combined), sapwood, and heartwood thickness measurements were used to predict sapwood volume from stem diameter (including bark) for four of the ten species. These predictions of sapwood volume were used to scale respiratory potential to the main-bole level (excluding all branches). On the core level, species that maintained narrow sapwood (8–16% of bole radius) such as Pseudotusga menziesii, Taxus brevifolia, and Thuja plicata, had sapwood respiratory potentials in the lower bole that were 50% higher (P<0.05) than species with wide sapwood (>16% of bole radius), such as Abies amabilis, Pinus monticola, and Tsuga heterophylla. This pattern was not observed for inner bark respiratory potential, or for sapwood respiratory potential within the crown. On the main-bole level, respiratory potential per unit volume was inversely correlated to the live bole volumetric fraction (inner bark plus sapwood divided by whole bole volume) (Adj. R²=0.6). Specifically, tree species with 18–20% of the main bole alive potentially respired 1.3–3 times more per unit live bole volume than species with over 40%, suggesting that the live bole was less metabolically active in tree species that maintained large volumes of sapwood.