Effects of carbonization in the anatomical structure of Alexa grandiflora’s Ducke wood

Abstract

The biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest acompanny intense rates environmental degradation. To expand the information on wood and charcoal coming from the Amazon could help in the inspection, contributing to the conservation of the local biodiversity. This research aimed to anatomical characterize the wood and charcoal made out of Alexa grandiflora Ducke, besides to evaluate the anatomical changes in the wood resulting from the process of carbonization. We analyze three individuals of A. grandiflora, as from of body proofs of 1.5 cm x 1.5 cm x 3.0 cm histological slides and charcoal were obtained. For the production of charcoal, the body proofs were submitted to a carbonization process with a heating rate of 1.66°C min–1, keeping it at 450 °C. Photomicrographs were taken in the cross section, longitudinal tangential and longitudinal radial sections of the wood and charcoal, from those pictures we have made the anatomical description of both products. To evaluate the effect of the carbonization on the anatomical characteristics of the wood, the data was analyzed by using “generalized linear models – GLM – for repeated measurements”. There has not been seen any alterations in the qualitative characteristics of the wood after the carbonization process. We noticed that the main characteristics for specie’s identification were maintained in the charcoal, with significant increase in vessel frequency per.mm-2 (+88.61%), decrease of the vessel diameter (-30.6%), and of the height (-30.6%) and width (-20%) of the rays. The number of rays por.mm-1 did not show any significant statistical difference.

Keywords

• Tropical woods
• Forest inspection
• Wood anatomy
• Anthracology