Bark is a vital and very visible part of woody plants, yet only recently has bark characteristics
started to be considered as key traits structuring communities and biomes. Bark thickness is …

Woody debris (WD) represents a globally significant carbon stock and its decomposition
returns nutrients to the soil while providing habitat to microbes, plants and animals …

Global variation in total bark thickness (TBT) is traditionally attributed to fire. However, bark
is multifunctional, as reflected by its inner living and outer dead regions, meaning that, in …

Most biological structures carry out multiple functions. Focusing on only one function to
make adaptive inferences overlooks that manifold selection pressures and tradeoffs shape …

Bark is crucial to trees because it protects their stems against fire and other hazards and
because of its importance for assimilate transport, water relationships and repair. We …

Key message Hygroscopicity is a crucial element of bark water storage and can reach> 60%
of water holding capacity of bark depending on tree species Abstract Bark forms the outer …

• Premise of the study: In ecosystems maintained by low‐intensity surface fires, tree bark
thickness is a determinant of fire‐survival because it protects underlying tissues from heat …

Commercial harvests can threaten tree species harvested for their bark. Amphipterygium
adstringens is a dioecious tree, endemic to the tropical dry forests of Mexico, where it is …

Bark thickness is ecologically crucial, affecting functions from fire protection to
photosynthesis. Bark thickness scales predictably with stem diameter, but there is little …

The bark fulfils several essential functions in vascular plants and yields a wealth of raw
materials, but the understanding of bark structure and function strongly lags behind our …