Relative Scale of Skeleton Plots

Trees living within a homogeneous stand or forest:

Usually exhibit the same relative pattern of growth variation through time
Often have absolute growth rates that differ substantially
- Due to living in different microsites
- Difficult to compare the ring-growth variation of two or more specimens from actual wood samples
- For example, see figure:

All three samples have exactly the same pattern of variation
Top sample has a growth rate less than that of the middle sample
Middle sample has a growth rate less than that of the bottom sample

Problem: Because of different growth rates, it's impossible to align the common pattern of variation using the actual wood samples

Solution: Dendrochronologists make skeleton plots to standardize scales:

Represent growth variation of samples onto separate strips of graph paper
Equalize the absolute scales ring growth
Easily compare growth variation of two or more specimens

Note the three skeleton plots of the figure:

Graphically represent their respective samples
Have the same relative scale
Easy to compare to one another
Clearly show the same pattern of variation of each sample:
- Ring #1: moderately narrow
- Ring #4: somewhat narrow
- Ring #14: very narrow
- Ring #18: wide