Format: ORAL

Alan Crivellaro1

1 Forest Biometrics Laboratory, Faculty of Forestry, "Stefan cel Mare" University of Suceava, Str. Universitatii 13, 720229 Suceava, Romania.

Scientists often correlate plant stem anatomical features and physical and biotic factors in the nearby environment. These relationships form a basis to hypothesise adaptive strategies as drivers of much of the anatomical diversity that has resulted through evolution. In plant stems, the role of bark encompasses conductive, mechanical, and other physiological functions performed by specifically evolved cell types and their arrangements, thus offering diverse bark anatomies. The extensive plant material collected and anatomically described from the island of Cyprus offered a unique opportunity to analyse the bark anatomy of trees, shrubs, dwarf shrubs, and climbers for ecological trends. This study presents bark anatomical trends I identified by analysing the entire woody flora of a geographically well-defined region. I will present how bark features of sieve tube morphology and distribution, sclerenchyma presence and arrangement, rays, phellem, phelloderm, crystals, secretory structures, and appearance under polarised light vary in different lifeforms and environments.