Impacts of climatic factors on radial growth of selected Fabaceae woody species from West African dry savannas

West Africa constitutes a hotspot region for both land use change and climate change. Land use change, and high climate variability in this region negatively affect tree growth dynamics, ecosystem functioning and services. In the present study, we assessed the impacts of climate variability on tree growth of Detarium microcarpum Guill. & Perr. and Tamarindus indica L., two Fabaceae woody species with high socio-economic significance in West Africa. In total, we collected 18 stem discs from dead trees of the two species in the South-Sudanian phytogeographic zone in Burkina Faso. The studied species showed well-defined growth ring-boundaries demarcated by marginal parenchyma bands. Cross-dating was successful within disc and within species, and enabled the construction of statistically robust tree-ring index chronologies. The chronologies spanned 45 years (1974 − 2019) and 30 years (1990 − 2019) for D. microcarpum and T. indica, respectively. We found a significant variation in tree growth rates (p-value 

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-025-02664-4

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