Animals & nature · 2015
How did bark structure affect rainwater flowing down beech and oak trunks in Germany?
The smoother beech bark held less water, allowing rainwater to start flowing down the trunk with less rainfall, while the more deeply ridged oak bark channelled less water down the trunk during larger storms. These findings came from European beech and pedunculate oak in central Germany under storm conditions where water stored in bark strongly affected drainage; they do not establish the same pattern for all trees or storms.
Details
Rainwater flowing down a tree trunk brings water to soil near its base. This field study compared two tree species by measuring the height and steepness of bark ridges and examining how bark structure related to water storage and drainage during storms.
European beech had smaller, less steep bark ridges and a lower capacity to store water. Lower storage capacity was strongly associated with greater maximum concentration of rainfall into flow down the trunk, and beech began producing this flow with less rainfall. Pedunculate oak had larger, steeper ridges and channelled less water down the trunk during larger storms. Its drainage depended more on moderate rain intensity and breaks in rainfall that helped maintain pathways along bark channels.
The researchers also suggested that oak’s ridges sheltered trapped water, so longer dry breaks within a storm were needed to affect trunk flow. That explanation was tentative. The study focused on conditions where bark water storage mattered strongly, rather than showing that smoother bark always delivers more water to the ground. Such conditions accounted for much of the rainfall recorded in 2013 at the nearest weather station.
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