Quantitative Examination of the Anatomy of the Juvenile Sugar Maple Xylem

Type of content
Journal Article
Thesis discipline
Degree name
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Language
en
Date
2023
Authors
Driller, Tenaya
Robinson, James
Clearwater M
Holland, Daniel
Van den Berg A
Watson, Matthew
Abstract

New methodologies have enabled viable sap yields from juvenile sugar maple trees. To further improve yields, a better understanding of sap exudation is required. To achieve this, the anatomy of the xylem must first be fully characterised. We examine juvenile maple saplings using light optical microscopy (LOM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), looking at sections cut along differing orientations as well as macerations. From this we measure various cell parameters. We find diameter and length of vessel elements to be 28 ± 8 μm and 200 ± 50 μm, for fibre cells 8 ± 3 μm and 400 ± 100 μm, and for ray parenchyma cells 8 ± 2 μm and 50 ± 20 μm. We also examine pitting present on different cell types. On vessel elements we observe elliptical bordered pits connecting to other vessel elements (with major axis of 2.1 ± 0.7 μm and minor 1.3 ± 0.3 μm) and pits connecting to ray parenchyma (with major axis of 4 ± 2 μm and minor 2.0 ± 0.7 μm). We observe two distinct pit sizes on fibres with circular pits 0.7 ± 0.2 μm in diameter and ellipsoidal pits 1.6 ± 0.4 μm by 1.0 ± 0.3 μm. We do not observe distinct pitting patterns on different fibre types. The various cell and pit measurements obtained generally agree with the limited data available for mature trees, with the exception of vessel element and fibre length, both of which were significantly smaller than reported values.

Description
Citation
Driller T, Robinson J, Clearwater M, Holland D, Van den Berg A, Watson M (2023). Quantitative Examination of the Anatomy of the Juvenile Sugar Maple Xylem. PLoS One. 18(10). e0292526-e0292526.
Keywords
Ngā upoko tukutuku/Māori subject headings
ANZSRC fields of research
30 - Agricultural, veterinary and food sciences::3007 - Forestry sciences::300705 - Forestry biomass and bioproducts
40 - Engineering::4004 - Chemical engineering::400405 - Food engineering
31 - Biological sciences::3108 - Plant biology::310806 - Plant physiology
31 - Biological sciences::3106 - Industrial biotechnology::310602 - Bioprocessing, bioproduction and bioproducts
31 - Biological sciences::3106 - Industrial biotechnology::310605 - Industrial microbiology (incl. biofeedstocks)
31 - Biological sciences::3108 - Plant biology::310803 - Plant cell and molecular biology
Rights
Copyright: © 2023 Driller et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.