Conservation / Tree Health

Ancient trees—those that are many hundreds, or even thousands, of years old—play a vital role in biodiversity and ecosystem preservation by providing stability, strength, and protection to at-risk environments. In a review article publishing on October 19 in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, a team of ecologists highlight the importance of preserving these monumental organisms and present a project initiative to ensure their protection and longevity.

By Sophie Aubrey

Next to the fallen trunk of the Royal Botanic Gardens’ 150-year-old white oak now stand three saplings that have come all the way from the sunny climes of California, Mexico and Texas.

The three young oak trees, about three metres tall and just coming into leaf for spring, will look slightly different to the older trees on Oak Lawn: the loquat leaf oak has rougher leaves without the classic lobes, the water oak’s leaves are narrower and the valley oak’s are smaller with deeper lobes.

by Naturalis Biodiversity Center

Why do some plants grow into large woody shrubs or colossal trees, while others remain small and never produce wood in their stems? It's an evolutionary puzzle that baffled Charles Darwin more than 160 year ago. Now, scientists from the Netherlands and Germany present the first global overview of woodiness evolution on islands, which will finally help solve the puzzle.

The non-profit CTREES is launching the first-ever digital platform for calculating the carbon in every tree on the planet, with complete accuracy.

By: Malin Rivers, Adrian C. Newton, Sara Oldfield, Global Tree Assessment Contributors

After the species was devastated by an Asian blight in the early 20th century, a single American chestnut tree in Centreville has been deemed a “precious resource” by the Delaware Nature Society. Jim White, a senior fellow at the Delaware Nature Society, said the tree discovered at Coverdale Farm Preserve is the largest and oldest he’s seen in his 50-year career. “For people who are interested in trees, that’s kind of a holy grail-type thing, to see a big American chestnut,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything that size anywhere, and very few people have.”

Perched among the fronds of the world’s loneliest tree, Viswambharan Sarasan had an important decision to make. Sarasan had worked for years to get access to this palm — the last living member of the species Hyophorbe amaricaulis, which grows in Curepipe Botanic Gardens, Mauritius.

By Shihab Jamal

For the first time, researchers have completed threat assessments for all 881 native tree species in the contiguous United States, resulting in a comprehensive checklist and synthesis that will serve as a critical baseline to guide future tree conservation efforts.

A conservation team has rediscovered a native magnolia tree in a forest in Haiti for the first time since it was lost to science in 1925.

Boasting pure white flowers and uniquely shaped leaves, the northern Haiti magnolia (Magnolia emarginata) was found originally in the forest of Morne Colombo, which has since been destroyed by deforestation. It was considered endangered and featured on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list of threatened species, and its discovery has sparked new hope for the potential rewilding of Haiti’s forests.