Thirty-four years of dendrochronological studies in Perú: A review of advances and challenges

Abstract

The development of tree-ring chronologies of tropical trees allows to reconstruct the environmental history of the Neotropics on extensive temporal and spatial scales. This article presents a historic, state-of -the-art overview/ review of dendrochronological studies in Perú, a megadiverse country in its flora, types of climate and ecosys- tems. We reviewed all available information on dendrochronological studies by assessing scientific articles in indexed, and non-indexed journals as well university thesis repositories. Dendrochronological studies began in the late 1980s and have botanically involved 20 families, 34 genera and 52 tree species. The most studied families are Fabaceae (16 studies), Meliaceae (12), Rosaceae (06), and Bignoniaceae (04), and the most studied genera were Cedrela (13), Polylepis (08) and Prosopis (06). The development of chronologies was mainly applied in climatic reconstructions, forest conservation and management. We identify underrepresentation or sampling gaps regarding climatic and geographic complexity. The high tree diversity of Perú constitutes a natural labo- ratory to develop tree-ring studies to better understand the growth and functioning of tropical tree species, their interaction with climate, and to derive climate reconstructions during the last centuries. This review aims to contribute to the direction of future dendrochronological studies in Perú.