Breakthrough Discovery: Scientists Identify Unique Tulip Tree Wood That Could Revolutionize Carbon Sequestration and Combat Climate Change

Scientists have discovered a new type of wood that does not fit into the hardwood or softwood categories. Tulip trees seem to have a special type of wood that also conserves carbon well, so they could contribute to the fight against global warming.

Scientists from Sainsbury’s laboratory at the University of Cambridge and Jagiellonian University in Poland made the discovery during an evolutionary study of microscopic wood structure from some of the world’s most iconic trees and shrubs.

They found out that tulip trees have a special type of wood, which is related to magnolias and can grow higher than 30 meters. Perhaps that explains why the trees grow so tall and fast. Their discovery opens up new opportunities to improve carbon sequestration in ‘plantation forests’ by planting this fast-growing ornamental tree, or by growing tulip-like wood in it the other tree species.

Iconic trees

The researchers studied 33 tree species from the living collection of the University of Cambridge Botanic Garden, to find out how wood ultrastructure changed between softwoods (gymnosperms such as pines and conifers) and hardwoods (angiosperms such as oak, ash, birch and eucalyptus).

“We analyzed some of the world’s most iconic trees, such as the coastal redwood, wollemia and ‘living fossils’ such as Amborella trichopoda, the only surviving species of the plant family that was ‘ earliest group that stands apart from all. other flowering plants,” explains Raymond Wightman from the Sainsbury’s Laboratory.

“Our research data has given us new insights into the evolutionary relationships between wood nanostructure and cell wall composition, which differ between angiosperm (hardwood) and gymnosperm (softwood) lineages,” Wightman said. .

Macrofibrils

The so-called macrofibrils in the cell wall of hard wood are smaller (15 nanometers) than those in the cell wall of soft wood (25 nanometers). The two surviving species of the ancient genus Liriodendron, commonly known as the tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) and the Chinese tulip tree (Liriodendron chinense) appear to have an intermediate macrofibril structure (20 nanometers) very different from the structure of softwood or hardwood. .
“Liriodendrons diverged from magnolia trees around 30-50 million years ago, coinciding with a rapid decrease in atmospheric CO2. This could explain why tulip trees are very efficient in storing carbon,” said Jan Lyczakowski of the Jagiellonian University, lead author of the study published in New Phytologist.
The team suspects that the larger macrofibrils in this intermediate species are the reason for the rapid growth of the tulip trees.

Cell wall architecture

“They are extremely efficient at sequestering carbon, and their extended macrofibril structure may be an adaptation to help them capture and store larger amounts of carbon as getting carbon in the atmosphere going down,” Lyczakowski believes.

“The primary building blocks of wood are the secondary cell walls, and it is the architecture of these cell walls that gives wood the density and strength we rely on to build. But secondary cell walls are the largest source of carbon in the biosphere, making it even more important to understand their diversity to improve our carbon sequestration programs to help mitigate climate change,” he concludes. .