- 1International Radiocarbon AMS Competence and Training (INTERACT) Center, HUN-REN Institute for Nuclear Research, Debrecen, H-4026, Hungary (varga.tamas@atomki.hu)
- 2Isotoptech Ltd., Debrecen, H-4026, Hungary
- 3Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA
- 4University of Arizona AMS Laboratory, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA
- 5Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena 07745, Germany
- 6HUN-REN, Institute for Nuclear Research, Debrecen, H-4026, Hungary
- 7Department of Botany, University of Debrecen, H-4032, Hungary
Terrestrial plants maintain carbon reserves to support their functions during periods when metabolic demand exceeds carbon supply, such as during the dormant season (Carbone et al. 2013). Urban trees may differ in the size and age of these carbon pools due to their specific environmental conditions, especially more stressful environment and occasional lack of water. In order to better understand the carbon storage strategy of urban trees, tree-ring core samples were collected in a medium-sized Hungarian city, Debrecen, from Celtis occidentalis trees located in different urban areas, such as downtown and suburban sampling points. In addition to the tree rings, bud samples were also collected to determine the age of carbon used for the production of new plant tissue during spring. The accelerator mass spectrometry-based bomb-radiocarbon approach was used determine the age of the carbon stored in the plant and bud samples (Richardson et al. 2015, Richter et al. 2009.). The results show that fresh carbon was used to produce new spring buds and the results show that the possible fossil contribution in urban areas can shift the age of fresh plant material. In contrast, our previous study showed that non-urban trees use much older carbon to produce buds (Varga et al. 2024). Although the trees studied used fresh carbon to build new tissues, the sugar and starch concentrations and their radiocarbon ages show that there is a low but considerable amount of stored carbon in the urban trees. The 14C measurement reveals the turnover time and mixing of old and fresh carbon in the tree, and shows a declining trend in the stored carbon concentration by the years.
References
Carbone et al. 2013., Age, allocation and availability of nonstructural carbon in mature red maple trees. New Phytologist 200(4): 1145–1155.
Richardson et al., 2015. Distribution and mixing of old and new nonstructural carbon in two temperate trees. New Phytologist 206(2): 590–597.
Richter et al., 2009. Preparation of starch and soluble sugars of plant material for the analysis of carbon isotope composition: a comparison of methods. Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom. 23, 2476–2488.
Varga, et al., 2024. Spring buds of European woody plants have old 14C age. Heliyon 10.
How to cite: Varga, T., Nagy, D., Molnár, M., Jull, T. A. J., Futó, I., Sierra, C. A., Hilman, B., Vargas, D., and Lisztes-Szabó, Z.: Assessing Carbon Storage and Age in Urban Trees Using Radiocarbon Analysis, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-7360, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-7360, 2025.
