Green Group discussion

https://phys.org/news/2023-06-trees-t...

"Fossil tree resins open a window into the deep past as their organic compounds, termed biomarkers, can be used to identify the botanical provenance of these ancient trees, as well as the paleoenvironmental conditions in which they grew. Amber, one such resin, is a prized gemstone, but can also preserve plants and insects living on the tree at the time of resin exudation in immaculate detail.
...

"Furthermore, the paleoclimate at the time of resin expulsion can be determined by the isotopic composition of oxygen, carbon and hydrogen, as these remain fixed through time and can be important proxies for paleotemperature, therefore highlighting climate change events. Given that these biomarkers still occur in extant plants and trees, looking to the past is an important key to understanding how modern plant communities may also fare during current and future climate change."

More information: Jan Pańczak et al, Biomarkers in fossil resins and their palaeoecological significance, Earth-Science Reviews (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.earscirev.2023.104455

https://phys.org/news/2023-06-hidden-...

"In a new study, researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and partners have described the only known member of the palm family (Arecaceae) to flower and fruit almost entirely underground. Owing to this unusual characteristic, the scientists have named the species Pinanga subterranea, with its species name derived from the Latin word for underground. The work was published in the journal PALMS with added commentary in Plants, People, Planet.

Native to the tropical island of Borneo in Southeast Asia, the plant is well-known to locals who like to snack on its bright-red fruit—a sweet and juicy delicacy consumed in some parts of the island. However, until now, the plant has remained unnoticed by scientists who, to date, have described around 300 different species of palm on the island.
...

"Dr. Benedikt Kuhnhäuser, Future Leader Fellow at RBG Kew, says, "Without the tip-off from our Malaysian colleague Dr. Paul Chai, we probably would have mistaken this exciting new species for an unremarkable palm seedling and would have walked right past it. Instead, we have scientifically described an incredibly rare case of geoflory, that is underground flowering, and the very first known example of its kind in the entire palm family. It truly is a once-in-a-lifetime discovery."
...

"The vast majority of flowering plants (angiosperms) have evolved to develop their flowers and fruit above ground, which helps to facilitate pollination and the dispersal of seeds. But there is a small subset of plants that has evolved to flower and fruit underground—processes known as geoflory and geocarpy, respectively—which has been observed in at least 171 species across 89 genera and 33 plant families. The peanut, for example, flowers above ground, but its fruit then develop underground. However, exclusively fruiting and flowering entirely underground is an extremely rare phenomenon and to the authors' knowledge, it has only ever been observed in the small orchid genus Rhizanthella."

More information: PALMS (2023). palms.org/journal/vol-67-no-2-june-2023/

Plants, People, Planet (2023). nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/do … l/10.1002/ppp3.10393

Provided by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Fig trees are self-pollinating, so it is a puzzle how there are so many species. The full story is pretty complex and in continuous study. Book covers for illustration purposes.


https://phys.org/news/2023-07-unravel...

"Containing more than 850 species, fig trees are one of the most diverse groups of plants in the world.

To unravel how this plant genus (Ficus in the Moraceae family) evolved to become such a diverse group, an international team of researchers, including a Northwestern University plant biologist, examined 1,858 genes from 520 species of figs. The study was published earlier this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Although previous researchers have hypothesized that fig diversity arose from widespread gene sharing across fig species, the new study instead suggests that gene sharing only modestly contributed to figs' evolution. The new analysis paints a picture of stable evolution within lineages, punctuated by only occasional instances of cross-species gene sharing.
...
"When trying to explain fig trees' diversity, previous researchers have looked to introgression—a process in which genes pass from one species to a related species through hybridization—as a major driver of fig diversity. This hypothesis emerged partly due to the way figs are pollinated. Each fig species is thought to have a unique fig wasp species that pollinates it, so pollinator switching could lead to hybridization driving diversity."

More information: Elliot M. Gardner et al, Echoes of ancient introgression punctuate stable genomic lineages in the evolution of figs, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2222035120

Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Provided by Northwestern University

A short animated film about creating small woodlands. Set in Ireland, but applies widely.

https://vimeo.com/831553356/238ee166e...

Ash dieback is here in Ireland. Ash (Fraxinus excelsior) were typically planted along a hedgerow and this means that many of them line country roads.

https://www.rte.ie/news/2023/0807/139...

"There have been calls for financial supports for landowners and farmers who face thousands of euro in bills to remove dying roadside ash trees from their land.

The trees are infected with ash dieback disease, which is expected to kill up to 90% of them, leaving them in danger of collapse. Ash dieback disease is a fungal infection that is killing ash trees across Europe.

Under the law, landowners are liable for any damage caused by their trees.

On a country road near Athboy in Co Meath, tree surgeons are at work. They are removing a roadside ash tree badly affected with ash dieback disease."

Expert: All beech trees in Connecticut will die
Seems like an alarmist headline but unfortunately it isn't.

The American Beech tree is in serious trouble. The trees are being attacked by Beech Scale which has been going on for 50 years.

Beech bark disease (BBD) is a scale insect-fungus complex that has caused the decline and death of afflicted beech trees. First noticed in Nova Scotia, Canada.

It is now threatening all the beech trees in the eastern half of the US, which is where all the beech trees are located. It weakens the tree and almost always ultimately results in the death of the tree.

Climate change has caused the widespread explosion of BBD and is accelerating its spread. About 3 percent of the beech trees are resistant to the disease. The percentage might be higher in areas where the disease isn't present yet, but it is expected to affect all the tree locations eventually.

It is hoped that the resistant trees will survive and repopulate the beech tree population. But that won't happen in our lifetimes.

The weakened beech trees pose a serious health threat to people. The beech tree limbs can easily be broken off by any kind of wind and fall on people.

Perhaps one of the reasons why so many tree limbs seem to be falling, might be caused not only by higher wind speeds but also by an increasing number of diseased tree limbs.

WARNING!
Wind in the Trees
https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_...

Impacts of Beech Bark Disease and Climate Change on American Beech
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/8/5/155

Screening for Resistance to Beech Bark Disease
https://www.fs.usda.gov/psw/publicati...

That's really unfortunate. Scale insects often have a predator, like a bird or beetle. Maybe they are multiplying faster than they can be found, due to milder winters, or maybe the bird or beetle is being killed off due to pesticides.

Beeches are slow to grow and store a lot of carbon.

https://phys.org/news/2023-09-replant...

"Satellite observations of one of the world's biggest ecological experiments on the island of Borneo have revealed that replanting logged forests with diverse mixtures of seedlings can significantly accelerate their recovery.

The study "Positive effects of tree diversity on tropical forest restoration in a field-scale experiment" is published in Science Advances.

The experiment was set up by the University of Oxford's Professor Andy Hector and colleagues over 20 years ago as part of the SE Asia Rainforest Research Partnership (SEARRP). This assessed the recovery of 125 different plots in an area of logged tropical forest that were sown with different combinations of tree species.

The results revealed that plots replanted with a mixture of 16 native tree species showed faster recovery of canopy area and total tree biomass, compared to plots replanted with four or just one species. However, even plots that had been replanted with one tree species were recovering more quickly than those left to restore naturally.
...
"Professor Hector added, "Having diversity in a tropical forest can be likened to an insurance effect, similar to having a financial strategy of diverse investment portfolios."

In turn, a diverse mix of trees can support a much wider range of animal life. For instance, hornbills specifically require large mature trees with holes where the females can nest."

More information: Ryan Veryard et al, Positive effects of tree diversity on tropical forest restoration in a field-scale experiment, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adf0938. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ad...

Journal information: Science Advances

Provided by University of Oxford

https://nativenewsonline.net/environm...

"The American chestnut tree, or číhtkęr in Tuscarora, once grew across what is currently the eastern United States, from Mississippi to Georgia, and into southeastern Canada. The beloved and ecologically important species was harvested by Indigenous peoples for millennia and once numbered in the billions, providing food and habitat to countless birds, insects, and mammals of eastern forests, before being wiped out by rampant logging and a deadly fungal blight brought on by European colonization.

Now, a transgenic version of the American chestnut that can withstand the blight is on the cusp of being deregulated by the U.S. government. (Transgenic organisms contain DNA from other species.) When that happens, people will be able to grow the blight-resistant trees without restriction. For years, controversy has swirled around the ethics of using novel biotechnology for species conservation.
But Patterson, who previously directed the Tuscarora Environment Program and today is the assistant director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, has a different question: What good is bringing back a species without also restoring its traditional relationships with the Indigenous peoples who helped it flourish? "

The citrus fruit family tree. Seems to have its origins in southern Asia.

https://phys.org/news/2023-10-genetic...

Dendrochronology works even in partly fossilised tree stumps.

https://phys.org/news/2023-10-largest...

"The tree trunks, which are subfossils—remains whose fossilization process is not complete—were sliced into tiny single tree-rings. Analysis of these individual rings identified an unprecedented spike in radiocarbon levels occurring precisely 14,300 years ago. By comparing this radiocarbon spike with measurements of beryllium, a chemical element found in Greenland ice cores, the team proposes that the spike was caused by a massive solar storm that would have ejected huge volumes of energetic particles into Earth's atmosphere."

https://phys.org/news/2023-11-world-b...

"For over two centuries, scientists have recognized that climate plays a key role in determining the geographic zones of plant communities. Because boreal forests and soils face subzero winters and short summers, these forests and the animals that live in them are shifting northward as temperatures rise.

However, boreal forests' northward advance has been spotty and slower than expected. Meanwhile, their southern retreat has been faster than scientists predicted. As scholars who study northern ecosystems, forests and wetlands, we see concerning evidence that as the world warms, its largest forest wilderness appears to be shrinking."

Provided by The Conversation

https://phys.org/news/2023-11-forests...

""Diverse planted forests store more carbon than monocultures—upwards of 70%," said Dr. Emily Warner, a postdoctoral researcher in ecology and biodiversity science at the Department of Biology, University of Oxford, and first author of the study. "We also found the greatest increase in carbon storage relative to monocultures in four-species mixtures.""


More information: Young mixed planted forests store more carbon than monocultures—a meta-analysis, Frontiers in Forests and Global Change (2023). DOI: 10.3389/ffgc.2023.1226514

Provided by Frontiers

https://www.ecowatch.com/biden-admini...

"The Biden administration has announced a proposal to conserve and restore old-growth trees in United States national forests.

If adopted, the proposal would expand logging restrictions as part of an executive order issued on Earth Day 2022 to safeguard national forests. The protections would be a natural remedy for tackling the effects of climate change, press releases from The White House and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) said.

“Old and mature forests are vital to providing clean water, absorbing carbon pollution, and supplying habitat for wildlife. Today’s actions include a first-of-its kind proposal from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to amend all 128 forest land management plans across the country to conserve and restore old-growth forests across the National Forest System,” The White House said.

The amount of carbon dioxide U.S. forests absorb is equal to more than 10 percent of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

The new proposal, which adds to the over 26 million acres of waters and lands that have already been protected by the administration, will direct the U.S. Forest Service in its restoration and conservation efforts."


The proposal as a Pdf.

https://public-inspection.federalregi...

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17...

"John Kush, a retired Auburn University research fellow, has spent much of his life studying the longleaf pine. The state tree of Alabama, it once reigned throughout the southeastern United States, but was all but given up for dead not long ago. Beginning with European settlement, and accelerating after the Civil War, logging and resin extraction drove the sturdy, long-needled species to near-extinction. Less than 3 percent of its original 92 million acre range remained by the 1990s.

Now, in what has been called one of the most ambitious landscape restoration projects in the world, Alabama’s Tuskegee National Forest is one of thousands of sites where forest managers have been trying to bring the longleaf pine back to its glory days. As he walks the forest on an autumn day, Kush sees both promising signs—a cluster of baby longleaf pine seedlings—and troubling ones: patches of small hickory trees and hawthorn shrubs, woody growth that can crowd out the longleaf with shade and thick groundcover.

Longleaf restoration is a struggle against such competition. It requires careful monitoring, probably herbicides, possibly the harvesting of nearby trees, and certainly fire—blazes repeated as frequently as every two years and carefully timed for both the weather and the condition of the forest."

Here's a dataviz on which countries have the largest forests.


https://www.visualcapitalist.com/whic...

Russia, Canada and China are the three largest, which is why, as we've remarked, most of the world's paper comes from these nations.

https://phys.org/news/2024-02-century...

"Widespread 20th-century reforestation in the eastern United States helped counter rising temperatures due to climate change, according to new research. The authors highlight the potential of forests as regional climate adaptation tools, which are needed along with a decrease in carbon emissions.

"It's all about figuring out how much forests can cool down our environment and the extent of the effect," said Mallory Barnes, lead author of the study and an environmental scientist at Indiana University. "This knowledge is key not only for large-scale reforestation projections aimed at climate mitigation, but also for initiatives like urban tree planting."
...

"The researchers found that forests in the eastern U.S. today cool the land's surface by 1 to 2 degrees Celsius (1.8 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) annually. The strongest cooling effect occurs at midday in the summer, when trees lower temperatures by 2 to 5 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit)—providing relief when it's needed most.

Using data from a network of gas-measuring towers, the team showed that this cooling effect also extends to the air, with forests lowering the near-surface air temperature by up to 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) during midday. (Previous work on trees' cooling effect has focused on land, not air, temperatures.)

The team then used historic land cover and daily weather data from 398 weather stations to track the relationship between forest cover and land and near-surface air temperatures from 1900 to 2010. They found that by the end of the 20th century, weather stations surrounded by forests were up to 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than locations that did not undergo reforestation. Spots up to 300 meters (984 feet) away were also cooled, suggesting the cooling effect of reforestation could have extended even to unforested parts of the landscape."


More information: Mallory L. Barnes et al, A Century of Reforestation Reduced Anthropogenic Warming in the Eastern United States, Earth's Future (2024). DOI: 10.1029/2023EF003663

Provided by American Geophysical Union

Its like having a house with only half the roof in place. It takes a lot more work and energy to keep the rooms not covered by the roof in good condition compared to the rooms with a roof covering it.

Thanks to Iona McDuff for drawing my attention to the following article.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq5...

"A new project is seeking out the locations of 'lost' last stands of Scotland's ancient native pine woods.

Fragments of the once vast Caledonian forest are dotted across parts of Argyll, Highlands and Aberdeenshire.

Some of the Scots pines are descendants of trees that appeared at the end of the last ice age in Scotland about 11,000 years ago.

Trees for Life and Woodland Trust Scotland hopes the areas of trees they find could be saved and the woodlands restored.
...

"Gaelic place-names offer clues to where the woodland could potentially be found.

Trees for Life said the Gaelic word for pine is ‘giuthas’, and the word could be found in the English language names for Kingussie and Dalguise.

The charity said historical Gaelic records could also provide key information.

One example of this is a description of Glenmoriston, where some fragments of Caledonian forest survives, as "the gentle Glenmoriston, where the dogs don’t eat the candles".

The reference relates to resin from Scots pine trees resin being used for making candles in preference to using animal fat.
...

"Wild Pine Project officer Jane Sayers said: “Lost pinewoods are at particular risk because they are unrecognised and undocumented.

"We want to find them, assess their condition, and revive them before they are lost forever.

“Finding these pinewoods requires a lot of detective work.

"They are often small and remote, hidden in ravines safe from deer."

She added: "Pines, or their remains, are often found scattered among birchwood too.”

The Caledonian Forest covered huge swathes of Scotland, and even reached the Western Isles and Shetland 5,000 years ago.

A change to a cooler and wetter climate, along with human activity, led to a decline in the forest's coverage.

By the 1900s about 5% of Scotland's land area had woodland, according to Scottish government agency NatureScot.

Scots pines can live for at least 500 years.

Trees more than 300 years old are known as "granny pines", and often have lots of dead wood that provides habitat for rare insects."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-...

"They provide habitat for red squirrels and birds such as capercaillie, crested tits and crossbills.

The pinewoods' tree species include Scots pine - Scotland's national tree - as well as birch and juniper.

Trees for Life said deer were a problem because they eat saplings, while non-native conifers such as sitka spruce could "crowd out" native trees.

The charity said the ancient woodlands were recovering in some locations thanks to conservation work, including Glen Affric and around Glenfeshie, which are both in the Highlands, and Mar Lodge near Braemar in Aberdeenshire.

Senior ecologist James Rainey, who led the study, said: "These pinewoods should be playing a key role in Scotland's fight-back against the climate and nature emergencies, but right now most are on their last legs.

"It's not too late to turn this around, but that means seriously stepping-up restoration and rewilding action.""

https://www.rte.ie/news/dublin/2024/0...

"The tallest tree at the National Botanic Gardens (NBG) in Dublin has died after it began showing signs of poor health in 2020.

The Giant Redwood tree, which is native to California, stood at a height of 33 metres. Tests carried out by the Department of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries (DAFF) discovered two fungal pathogens that could be the cause of the tree's death.

A spokesperson said that "within a period of 12 months all of the branches had decayed and were beginning to become brittle, with some snapping off in strong winds".

In 2021 it was decided by the NBG to remove all of the branches from the Giant Redwood, Sequoiadendron giganteum, because the weakened branches posed a potential safety hazard to the Gardens’ staff and visitors.

"The main trunk has remained in place since, sitting as a splendid monolith above the gardens," a spokesperson said.

They added it was difficult to be sure of the precise cause of the tree’s death, but the DAFF lab results identified a couple of fungal pathogens that may be responsible.

"The plant health section of the Department of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries have kindly examined bark and roots from the dead tree, including samples from the living trees opposite the director’s residence - sadly also showing signs of poor health," they said.

"Neofusicoccum luteum and Neofusicoccum australe were isolated and identified from the samples taken. Species of Neofusicoccum have been identified as causing cankers and dieback in woody species around the world, including Sequoiadendron giganteum.

"Neofusicoccum is one of the main suspects for the disease based on symptoms displayed on the Giant Redwood at the National Botanic Gardens," a spokesperson said.

The lab results also detected an additional fungal pathogen, Cytospora also a known Sequoiadendron pathogen (Cytospora canker of redwood), in the tree."

https://phys.org/news/2024-02-wood-tr...

"Humans in northern Europe have been using hazel trees as a source of materials and food for thousands of years. For the people who collected hundreds of hazelnuts found at Mesolithic and Neolithic sites, they were a valuable resource.

"The nuts are an excellent source of energy and protein, and they can be stored for long periods, consumed whole or ground," said Dr. Karl Ljung of Lund University, Sweden, senior author of the article. "The shells could also have been used as a fuel."

Like all plants, hazel trees contain carbon, which exists in different forms known as isotopes. The proportions of the different carbon isotopes are altered by the ratio of carbon dioxide concentrations between leaf cells and in the surrounding environment. In plants like hazel, this ratio is strongly affected by sunlight and water availability; where water is not scarce, as in Sweden, sunlight influences the ratio much more. Where there are fewer other trees to compete for the sunlight and rates of photosynthesis are higher, the hazels will have higher carbon isotope values.

"This means that a hazelnut shell recovered on an archaeological site provides a record of how open the environment was in which it was collected," explained Ljung. "This in turn tells us more about the habitats in which people were foraging.""

More information: Carbon isotope values of hazelnut shells: a new proxy for canopy density, Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology (2024).
https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fearc.2024...

https://phys.org/news/2024-03-powerfu...

"A new study published on February 29 in the journal Science of the Total Environment has documented the remarkable recovery of Tanna's forests after Cyclone Pam. The team, which included researchers from UH Mānoa, The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG), the University of the South Pacific, and the Vanuatu Cultural Center and Vanuatu Department of Forestry, examined post-cyclone recovery across eight forested sites on Tanna over five years.

"Compared to cyclones on other Pacific Islands, Pam caused relatively low levels of severe damage to Tanna's trees," said UH Mānoa School of Life Sciences Professor Tamara Ticktin and lead author on the paper. "In addition, there was high resprouting, widespread recruitment of most tree species present, and basically no spread of invasive species."

The latter is especially surprising, because invasive species often spread rapidly after Pacific Island cyclones."

More information: Tamara Ticktin et al, High resilience of Pacific Island forests to a category- 5 cyclone, Science of The Total Environment (2024).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...
Journal information: Science of the Total Environment

Provided by University of Hawaii at Manoa

https://phys.org/news/2024-03-giant-s...

"The new research, published in Royal Society Open Science, found that the most massive species of redwood trees, Sequoiadendron giganteum, known as the giant sequoia, can potentially pull an average of 85 kilograms of carbon out of the atmosphere per year. Though introduced to the UK 160 years ago, this is the first time the trees' growth rate and resilience in the UK have been analyzed.

There are an estimated half a million redwoods in the UK and more are being planted, partly due to their public appeal. In the wild, they are endangered with fewer than 80,000 giant sequoias remaining in their native California range."

Where trees meet consumerism, trees are the loser.

https://rte.social.ebu.io/DTZBGA82ZNPX

"For more than a year, a team of French journalists has traced Ikea's production chain in an exhaustive international investigation. It reveals the practices that, from the beginning to the present day, the Swedish chain has carried out to source the wood needed to manufacture its furniture. According to Stenebo, in the 1990s, illegally harvested wood was used to supply the brand's stores. Ikea denies this, but did not allow journalists to verify it first hand, they simply refused to open their doors to them.

The investigation reveals that, in 2011, the Swedish giant was involved in the controversial felling of one of Russia's four virgin forests and, in 2020, the brand's suppliers were accused of cutting down primary forests in Ukraine to manufacture chairs and dining tables. "Ikea tries to give the image that it cares about the environment, but that's a lie," Stenebo says."

The seed of Erodium is self-planting by a built-in twisting tail. A robot - made of stressed oakwood - can use this technique to plant tree seeds in otherwise inaccessible areas. I saw a video on Linked In.

https://interestingengineering.com/ie...

"What truly sets the Erodium Copy robot apart is its keen emulation of natural processes. It achieves and maintains its orientation with three anchor points, ensuring stability and precision in its operations. Using a calibrated number of coils, it gently thrusts seeds into the soil, offering protection from natural threats such as fires and heavy rains. This mimics the way many plants in nature propagate their seeds, ensuring that the seeds have the best possible chance of taking root and thriving.

One of the most remarkable aspects of this innovation is its commitment to sustainability. The primary material used in its construction is Oakwood, a wood renowned for its strength and eco-friendliness. By avoiding the use of additional synthetic materials, the Erodium Copy robot minimizes environmental harm, making it a truly eco-conscious solution for reforestation.

Extensive testing has been conducted, including drone-aided seed airdrops, which have achieved an impressive 90% success rate. This underscores the effectiveness of the Erodium Copy robot in its mission to restore our ecosystems. Furthermore, this robot is not limited to just planting seeds; it can also host symbiotic species like fungi and nematodes. This enhances plant survival rates in diverse environments, making it an invaluable tool for ecological restoration efforts worldwide."

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/peterj...

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2024/...

"Spruce trees grow quickly and tall and are the mainstay of Ireland's commercial forestry, being used for a wide range of timber products for house construction and other applications.

Spruce trees account for 50% of the trees in Ireland.

However, for various reasons including recent delays in forestry licensing and a drop in harvesting during Covid-19, over 150,000 tonnes of spruce logs with their bark still present are imported from Scotland every year for processing in Irish sawmills.

That is despite the fact that the spruce bark beetle is found in that country. However, only logs from western Scotland’s Pest Free Area (PFA), where the beetle is not present, are brought here."

https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2024...

"Last year, a Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine report on the impact of ash dieback on growers said it should be treated as a national emergency and recommended ex gratia payments in recognition of the lack of an effective State scheme to manage the disease for many years.

Since then, frustration has intensified among more than 6,000 farmers and growers as they await news of the payments, having watched their trees wilt and die for 12 years from the time the disease arrived in Ireland.

The payments, of €5,000 per hectare, would be in addition to previously announced site clearance grants of €2,000 per hectare and up to €8,500 to reconstitute plantations.

The package set to be approved by the Government today represents a substantial increase in payments to growers who have complained that previous schemes failed to cover clearance costs or compensate for the loss of timber crops."

https://www.rte.ie/news/uk/2024/0430/...

"Two men have been charged with causing criminal damage following the felling of a famous Sycamore Gap tree in northeast England last year.
...
"The National Trust, which owns the land on which the tree stood, said it was hopeful the sycamore will live on after scientists found that salvaged seeds and cuttings are showing positive signs of being viable for new growth.

The charity announced that it is hopeful that more than 30% of the mature seeds and half of the cuttings it collected from the tree’s remains will be viable.

It is also said that the trunk of the original tree will regrow, but it may be up to three years before this is known for sure."

https://phys.org/news/2024-05-climate...

"A study published in PNAS shows that trees, especially those in the far north, may be relocating to soils that don't have the fungal life to support them.

Most plants form belowground partnerships with mycorrhizal fungi, microscopic, filamentous fungi that grow in the soil and connect with plant roots to supply plants with critical nutrients in exchange for carbon. Most large coniferous trees in northern latitudes form relationships with a kind of mycorrhizal fungi called ectomycorrhizal fungi.

"As we examined the future for these symbiotic relationships, we found that 35% of partnerships between trees and fungi that interact with the tree roots would be negatively impacted by climate change," says lead author Michael Van Nuland, a fungal ecologist at the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN)."

More information: Michael E. Van Nuland et al, Climate mismatches with ectomycorrhizal fungi contribute to migration lag in North American tree range shifts, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024).

Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

The links they gave are not working.

The Aral Sea is severely dried up and shrunk in area. I remember reading about this problem decades ago, and the sea has shrunk since. The soil beneath is salty and not fertile so farming wasn't working, and villages had incongruous abandoned large fishing boats in a sea of sand.

https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/uzb...

"Between the borders of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the Aral Sea, once the lifeblood of peoples in both countries, is parched, shrouded in a layer of toxic salt and dust that’s now taking a heavy toll on the health and farmlands of these very communities.

Since the Aral Sea, technically a lake, began shrinking in the 1960s, governments on both sides of the border led initiatives to revive tiny fractions of it. But Soviet-era dams, diverting waters feeding the sea to cotton monocultures, squelched the dream. As the Aral Sea dried out, a desert, the Aralkum, emerged and continues to expand on what used to be the lakebed. Today, the bed is caked with a thick layer of salt and of pesticide runoff that crystallized, creating a toxic cocktail of sediment on the ground. When the wind blows, this salt and dust can coat entire communities.

Now, instead of trying to restore the lake, officials from the Uzbekistan Forestry Agency and locals are trying to plant a new forest where it once rested. The main purpose of the afforestation project it to curb the harmful sandstorms and improve the ecosystem by planting desert-tolerant plants like saxaul (Haloxylon ammodendron) on the lakebed.

The current plan is to establish forests covering a total area of 150,000 to 200,000 hectares (371,000 to 494,000 acres) in 2024. Karakalpakstan, an Uzbek region that’s home to the Karakalpak people, is one of the most sandstorm-impacted areas in Uzbekistan. More than 300 residents of Karakalpakstan and around 150 employees from the Forestry Agency are joining hands to plant seedlings on the Aral Sea bed.

“I could not believe it when plans were going to transform the dried Aralkum Desert into a forest,” says Gulzira, one of the locals now involved in the afforestation project.

“But when tractors passed by our doorways, I was surprised to see the project taking place.”

Over the past five years, 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres) of forest have taken root at the bottom of the Aral Sea, on the Uzbekistan side of the border. The Forestry Agency has gathered and prepared more than 190 metric tons of seeds for sowing — desert-tolerant plants like saxaul, saltwort (Salsola spp.), ephedra (Ephedra strobilacea) and tamarisk (Tamarix spp.), among others, across an area of 2,700 hectares (6,700 acres)."

https://news.mongabay.com/2018/11/agr...

"Tajikistan is a dry and mountainous country where agroforestry is increasingly stabilizing soils degraded by decades of overgrazing, while growing food and providing cover for wildlife.
“Alley cropping” is the main agroforestry technique used in the area of Faizobod, in which crops or grains are grown between rows of fruit or nut trees that shield the tender annuals from incessant wind and sun.
Farm sizes are generally small, but farmers whom Mongabay visited enjoy multiple harvests annually, including 4 to 5 tons of apples a year in some cases.
Agroforestry also sequesters carbon from the atmosphere in the woody trunks and limbs of trees and vines: it’s estimated that there are currently 45 gigatons of carbon sequestered by these agricultural systems worldwide."

Here's a delightful snippet from newsletter of author J.J. Mathews who writes SF. To see the photos, you could ask to subscribe. Try his Goodreads author page to start.


"When life gives you lemons...
No, that's not a lemon. It's one of over a hundred easy-peel mandarins from just one of our citrus trees in the corner of our back yard.

We had trouble keeping up with the fruit production of that tree this year, and we gave away bags and bags to friends and family.

But we also fed the native birds, because, hey, why not?

The above picture shows how tidy (practically surgical!) that some of our birds can be when they eat fruit. Just the one hole, with the pieces neatly picked out, except the last two wedges in the back.

The tuis in particular like our mandarins, and who could blame them? They're wonderfully delicous and sweet.

But what about the lemons, you ask?

We've got those, too. In the middle of the photo below you'll see our lemonade tree - they're a sweet eating lemon you can eat just like an orange. (Not so good if you're looking for a tart lemon in a recipe, but they're very nice).

And on the right is our fickle mandarin, with a slightly tougher skin. Fickle, because it only fruits every two years. Don't ask me what variety it actually is, because I don't remember..."

I've just got a review copy of
The Complete Language of Trees - Pocket Edition: A Definitive and Illustrated History by S. Theresa Dietz


You may also be interested in Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of Our Future by Daniel Lewis

https://phys.org/news/2024-07-trees-r...

"While trees have long been known to benefit the climate by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, this new research reveals a surprising additional climate benefit. Microbes hidden within tree bark can absorb methane—a powerful greenhouse gas—from the atmosphere.

An international team of researchers led by the University of Birmingham has shown for the first time that microbes living in bark or in the wood itself are removing atmospheric methane on a scale equal to or above that of soil. They calculate that this newly discovered process makes trees 10% more beneficial for climate overall than previously thought.

Methane is responsible for around 30% of global warming since pre-industrial times and emissions are currently rising faster than at any point since records began in the 1980s.

Although most methane is removed by processes in the atmosphere, soils are full of bacteria that absorb the gas and break it down for use as energy. Soil had been thought of as the only terrestrial sink for methane, but researchers now show that trees may be as important, perhaps more so.
...
"In the study, the researchers investigated upland tropical, temperate and boreal forest trees. Specifically, they took measurements spanning tropical forests in the Amazon and Panama; temperate broadleaf trees in Wytham Woods, in Oxfordshire, UK; and boreal coniferous forest in Sweden.

The methane absorption was strongest in the tropical forests, probably because microbes thrive in the warm wet conditions found there. On average, the newly-discovered methane absorption adds around 10% to the climate benefit that temperate and tropical trees provide.

By studying methane exchange between the atmosphere and the tree bark at multiple heights, they were able to show that while at soil level the trees were likely to emit a small amount of methane, from a couple of meters up the direction of exchange switches and methane from the atmosphere is consumed."

More information: Vincent Gauci, Global atmospheric methane uptake by upland tree woody surfaces, Nature (2024). www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s4158...
Journal information: Nature

Provided by University of Birmingham

https://phys.org/news/2024-08-mature-...

"Researchers discovered that older trees responded to increased atmospheric levels of CO2 by increasing production of woody biomass—countering existing theories that mature woodland has no capacity to respond to elevated CO2 levels.

The experts found exposure to elevated levels of the greenhouse gas (ambient atmosphere + 150 parts per million CO2; about a 40% increase) increased wood production by an average of 9.8% over a seven-year period. No corresponding increase in production of material such as leaves or fine roots, which release CO2 into the atmosphere relatively quickly, could be detected.

Their findings published in Nature Climate Change, support the role of mature forests as medium-term (decades long) carbon stores and natural climate solutions—thanks to data from the long-running free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE) experiment at the University of Birmingham's Institute of Forest Research (BIFoR), in central England.

Researchers at BIFoR established a FACE experiment in a 180-year-old deciduous woodland dominated by 26-m tall English (or 'pedunculate') oak trees—six 30 meter diameter plots, three exposed to elevated CO2 with the other three plots acting as a control.

Lead author Professor Richard Norby, from the University of Birmingham, said, "Our findings refute the notion that older, mature forests cannot respond to rising levels of atmospheric CO2, but how they respond will likely depend on the supply of nutrients from the soil."

More information: Enhanced woody biomass production in a mature temperate forest under elevated CO2, Nature Climate Change (2024).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s4155...
Journal information: Nature Climate Change

Provided by University of Birmingham

Where Trees Touch the Sky: A Redwood National Park Novel by Karen Barnett is a new release, looks great.

The Complete Language of Trees: A Definitive and Illustrated History (Volume 12) by S. Theresa Dietz


My review.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The Complete Language of Trees - Pocket Edition: A Definitive and Illustrated History. Very interesting format to include each tree’s scientific and common name, characteristics, historic and hidden properties from mythology, legends, and folklore.

This is an academic essay on how some native Irish trees and lichens react to pollution. The author starts by saying they can help us clean pollution in cities; however she mainly describes how trees and lichens are badly affected by pollution. People don't want to look at apparently diseased trees, while lichen just won't grow where the air is toxic to it. She doesn't say anything I didn't know, but there are some links in the article to other articles that may be helpful.

https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2024/09...

"Researchers often assess physiological changes such as stomatal changes, leaf damage (i.e. discolouration) and dust or metal accumulation or chlorophyll content by strategically placing plants in areas of interest (biomonitoring stations) to collect airborne pollutants, or by performing a controlled biochemical analysis to assess responses to different air pollutant concentrations. Additionally, plants are inexpensive and easy-to-use bioindicators to determine spatial and temporal distribution patterns.

Lichens are commonly employed in research to monitor air quality as they are highly prevalent in terrestrial ecosystems, can tolerate a wide range of environmental conditions, and do not have roots, stems, leaves or vascular tissue; instead, they directly absorb water, nutrients and pollutants from the air and rain through their surface. When wetted, pollutants are deposited to their surfaces as gases, vapours, or fine particles dissolve and are absorbed. Depending on diverse lichen species, most prefer to grow in clean-air areas (e.g. bushy/fruticose lichens, such as usnea lichens), and their sensitivity to air pollution makes them significant air quality indicators as they will not grow in areas that have high-levels of air pollution."

https://phys.org/news/2024-09-tree-re...

"The jet stream, it turns out, largely determines the summer climate in Europe, and it does so in a seesaw-type pattern that climate researchers call a "dipole."

"When the jet stream is in an extreme northern position, we get cooler and wetter conditions over the British Isles and warmer and drier conditions over the Mediterranean and the Balkans," explained study co-author Ellie Broadman, a former postdoctoral research fellow at Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research who is now a biologist at the Sequoia-Kings Canyon Field Station of the U.S. Geological Survey.

"This is related to the climate conditions we are witnessing right now, such as catastrophic flooding in central Europe."

Hotter conditions over the Balkans cause more moisture than normal to evaporate from the Mediterranean Sea and rain down further north. Conversely, when the jet stream migrates further south, it drags warmer and drier air over the British Isles and pushes cooler temperatures and more moisture toward southeastern Europe.

Measurements of the jet stream have only been around since the late 1940s, Trouet said. By using tree-ring samples from across Europe as proxies for temperature, the research team was able to reconstruct jet stream variation over the past 700 years.

Each year, trees add a ring consisting of less dense wood in the spring and denser wood in the summer. By analyzing tree rings under the microscope, dendrochronologists can compile an archive of past climates."

More information: Valerie Trouet, Jet stream controls on European climate and agriculture since 1300 CE, Nature (2024).
www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07...

Journal information: Nature

Provided by University of Arizona

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpv...

"A tree in the Scottish Highlands known as the Skipinnish Oak has been named UK Tree of the Year.

Native woodland experts had no idea the tree existed until a gathering in 2009. It is thought to be at least 400 years old, and potentially up to 1,000 years old.

The band Skipinnish, which had played at the event, knew of the tree and led the conservationists to where it was hidden in a non-native Sitka spruce plantation on Achnacarry Estate.

It has won a public vote against 11 other contenders in the Woodland Trust competition."

"The Serviceberry tree is a sadly underused native tree that helps wildlife and is worth planting"

Plants follow their own schedules, dictated by the weather. The original New England settlers knew this, so they watched one specific tree — Amelanchier — for cues: When its white flowers were in bloom, it meant the soil was soft enough to dig graves, thus the name serviceberry.

This was because in colonial times, and until 20 years ago, daily freezing winter started in November, when the ground froze solid until the ground thawed out in March.

It was also call the Shadbush because its blooms coincide with the shad fish’s migratory season, another seasonal indicator.

The Amelanchier was one of the first plants to have berries in the spring because it is an early bloomer which provides food for insects, including pollinators, and animals, including people.

It is multi stemmed and can grow like a big bush. Cutting the side shoots off can result in the tree looking more like a typical tree. It grows 20 to 25 feet tall.

https://apnews.com/article/serviceber...

Sounds equivalent to our hawthorn, the May bush.

https://phys.org/news/2024-12-thirsty...

"Previous models did not account for the different water needs of various tree species, Martin said. This led to a potential underestimation of the threat posed by climate change in areas with increasing diffuse-porous tree populations.

"To make these predictions, we take the projected precipitation and subtract the amount of water that we think the trees will use, which lets us estimate how much water will be in these mountain streams. What we're seeing is that there will be less," Martin said. "You could have done that with the old model, but you wouldn't have had details about how different species intersect with climate change to create a larger vulnerability."

Naturally, trees like maples have been primarily located immediately adjacent to streams or in steep, moist coves in the southern Blue Ridge Mountains due to their vulnerability to fire, which other trees like oaks are more resistant to.

However, fire suppression efforts in the region combined with a long-running wet period led to an explosion in diffuse-porous trees across the landscape, which have now begun reaching maturity. This highlights the importance of considering the interaction between tree species and climate when planning land-use and conservation efforts, Martin said."

More information: Katie A. McQuillan et al, Interactions Between Climate and Species Drive Future Forest Carbon and Water Balances, Ecohydrology (2024).
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...
Provided by North Carolina State University

Here in Dublin I have observed willow trees shedding leaves during a long hot summer, to conserve water.

https://phys.org/news/2024-12-iconic-...

"New research has found that the punishing summer temperatures and persistent drought conditions in much of Arizona and the Southwest are dealing a double whammy to trees attempting to regulate their own temperature, putting a critical part of the desert ecosystem at risk.

The study, published in October in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at the iconic Fremont cottonwood, which has great ecological importance because of its capacity to support other biota. It is also resilient; the trees can thrive in both the Phoenix summers and the Flagstaff winters.

As heat waves increase, however, a key aspect of the trees' survivability—its mechanism to cool itself through its leaves—is increasingly at risk, said co-author Alexandra Schuessler, a two-time NAU alumna who is now a lab manager at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. It's not just the heat causing stress on the trees; the other factor is the trees need sufficient water to cool their leaves, and between climate change and dams changing natural watersheds, water is harder to come by."

More information: Bradley C. Posch et al, Intensive leaf cooling promotes tree survival during a record heatwave, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024).
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas...
Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Provided by Northern Arizona University

https://phys.org/news/2025-01-genetic...

""Walnuts and pecans have a temporal dimorphism where they alternate male and female flowering through the season," said Jeff Groh, graduate student in population biology at UC Davis and first author on the paper. "It's been known since the 1800s but hasn't been understood at the molecular level before."

This occurs in both domesticated walnuts and wild relatives, like the Northern California black walnut. In wild species, the ratio of male-first to female-first trees is almost 1:1.

In walnuts, they found two variants of a gene linked to female-first or male-first flowering. This DNA polymorphism appears in at least nine species of walnut and has been stable for almost 40 million years.

"It's pretty atypical to maintain variation over such a long time," Groh said. In this case, the two flowering types balance each other. If one flowering type becomes more common in the population than the other, the less common type gains a mating advantage, so it becomes more common. This pushes the system to a 50:50 equilibrium and maintains genetic variation.

Pecans, Groh found, also have a balanced genetic polymorphism determining flowering order, but in a different part of the genome than walnuts. The pecan polymorphism appears to be older than in walnut, at over 50 million years."

More information: Jeffrey S. Groh et al, Ancient structural variants control sex-specific flowering time morphs in walnuts and hickories, Science (2025). DOI: 10.1126/science.ado5578
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s...
Journal information: Science

Provided by UC Davis

https://phys.org/news/2025-01-curious...

"Trees need a certain number of warm days in their growing seasons to grow properly; otherwise, the cell walls of new growth don't lignify properly, creating blue rings that appear when wood samples are dyed.

Since trees and shrubs can live for hundreds of years, identifying these blue rings allows us to spot cold summers in the past. By looking at pine trees and juniper shrubs from northern Norway, scientists identified two extremely cold summers in 1902 and 1877, possibly caused by the eruptions of Mount Pelée on the island of Martinique and Cotopaxi in Ecuador.

"Blue rings look like unfinished growth rings, and are associated with cold conditions during the growing season," said Dr. Agata Buchwal of Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland, lead author of the article in Frontiers in Plant Science."

More information: Blue rings in trees and shrubs as indicators of early and late summer cooling events at the northern treeline, Frontiers in Plant Science (2025).
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/...
Journal information: Frontiers in Plant Science

Provided by Frontiers

https://www.ecowatch.com/brazil-rainf...

"Forests growing along the edges of rivers in Brazil act as “highways” allowing tree species to traverse between the Atlantic and Amazon rainforests, a phenomenon that has been occurring for millions of years, according to new research led by University of Exeter and Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE).

Hundreds of miles of savanna and dry forest separate the two forests, where most rainforest tree species are unable to survive, a press release from University of Exeter said.

“Rather than tree species being exchanged during specific wetter periods in the past, we found that species have dispersed consistently over time,” said Dr. James Nicholls, a biodiversity genomics scientist with RBGE, in the press release. “This probably happens slowly, by generations of trees growing along the ‘highways’ provided by rivers that run through Brazil’s dry ecosystems.”"

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/do...

The Wood Age: How Wood Shaped the Whole of Human History by Roland Ennos