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JXB Advance Access published online on May 12, 2009
Journal of Experimental Botany, doi:10.1093/jxb/erp133
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© The Author [2009]. Published by Oxford University Press [on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology]. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

RESEARCH PAPER

Mesoporosity as a new parameter for understanding tension stress generation in trees

Shan-Shan Chang1,2, Bruno Clair1,*, Julien Ruelle3, Jacques Beauchêne4, Francesco Di Renzo5, Françoise Quignard5, Guang-Jie Zhao2, Hiroyuki Yamamoto3 and Joseph Gril1

1Laboratoire de Mécanique et Génie Civil (LMGC), Université Montpellier 2, CNRS, Pl. E. Bataillon, cc 048, 34095 Montpellier Cedex 5, France
2College of Materials Science and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, PR China
3School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Chikusa, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan
4Ecologie des Forêts de Guyane (EcoFoG), CIRAD, BP 709, 97387 Kourou cedex, French Guyana
5Institut Charles Gerhardt Montpellier,UMR 5253 Université Montpellier 2, CNRS, ENSCM, UM1, 8 rue Ecole Normale, 34296 Montpellier Cedex 5, France

* To whom correspondence should be addressed: E-mail: clair{at}lmgc.univ-montp2.fr

The mechanism for tree orientation in angiosperms is based on the production of high tensile stress on the upper side of the inclined axis. In many species, the stress level is strongly related to the presence of a peculiar layer, called the G-layer, in the fibre cell wall. The structure of the G-layer has recently been described as a hydrogel thanks to N2 adsorption–desorption isotherms of supercritically dried samples showing a high mesoporosity (pores size from 2–50 nm). This led us to revisit the concept of the G-layer that had been, until now, only described from anatomical observation. Adsorption isotherms of both normal wood and tension wood have been measured on six tropical species. Measurements show that mesoporosity is high in tension wood with a typical thick G-layer while it is much less with a thinner G-layer, sometimes no more than normal wood. The mesoporosity of tension wood species without a G-layer is as low as in normal wood. Not depending on the amount of pores, the pore size distribution is always centred around 6–12 nm. These results suggest that, among species producing fibres with a G-layer, large structural differences of the G-layer exist between species.

Key words: Growth stress, hydrogel, mesoporosity, tension wood

Received 18 November 2008; Revised 31 March 2009 Accepted 5 April 2009


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