This is a fairly nitpicky question, but i’m sure the woodmakers here are a helpful bunch. Does the grain tightness of a particular wood affect the longevity and acoustics of said wood?
I would think so. I'm no wood expert but doesn't tighter grain mean it's closer to the heart of the tree? Therefor it should be denser than wider grain. That said, there's so many species within each genus, so unless you know the exact wood species of each of your damas it would be hard to compare. Unless every dama is made of the same species within each genus. All that said lol, there are many factors that change wood while growing, i.e. Climate, weather, etc. Hopefully I didn't go too deep for what you were asking but the question is a good one and interesting.
To add to this, there is also wood pore consideration. The wider the pore, more room for “air” to potentially make a less dense and change the acoustics.
If you're talking about impact acoustics what I've noticed on tight grained woods is a higher pitch; oak, bamboo, maple. Lower density woods have a lower pitch; beech, elm, keyaki, ash. For samples within a species I'm not sure it would be as noticeable unless they were really different; heartwood vs sapwood. If you're really looking for "Scholarly articles" then these should keep you busy for a while: Acoustic Studies on Wood (PDF) Acoustical properties of wood in string instruments soundboards and tuned idiophones: Biological and cultural diversity (PDF) There is also an audio file in this post with a number of woods compared: Kendama Comparisons