Giant African Baobab Trees Die Suddenly After Thousands of Years (theguardian.com)

Some of Africa's oldest and biggest baobab trees have abruptly died, wholly or in part, in the past decade, according to researchers. From a report: The trees, aged between 1,100 and 2,500 years and in some cases as wide as a bus is long, may have fallen victim to climate change, the team speculated. "We report that nine of the 13 oldest ... individuals have died, or at least their oldest parts/stems have collapsed and died, over the past 12 years," they wrote in the scientific journal Nature Plants, describing "an event of an unprecedented magnitude." "It is definitely shocking and dramatic to experience during our lifetime the demise of so many trees with millennial ages," said the study's co-author Adrian Patrut of the Babes-Bolyai University in Romania. Among the nine were four of the largest African baobabs. While the cause of the die-off remains unclear, the researchers "suspect that the demise of monumental baobabs may be associated at least in part with significant modifications of climate conditions that affect southern Africa in particular." Further research is needed, said the team from Romania, South Africa and the United States, "to support or refute this supposition."

Comments

Re:Well now we know how the cat is doing

[thomst]

SuperKendall mused:

Baobob trees were fine for thousands of years... ...until 2005 when researches started examining them, then nearly 70% of the oldest ones die.

HMM.

I highly doubt climate change did them in. It just doesn't work that way.

I suspect a newly-introduced pathogen is responsible, as turned out to be the case with sudden oak death syndrome a few years ago.

Don't get me wrong. I do, indeed, expect climate change to negatively impact baobob trees, and many, many other species (coastal and montane redwoods, anyone?) - eventually. Just not yet, and not this suddenly ...

Re:Or maybe they die of old age?

[another_twilight]

They do realize that trees actually do eventually die of old age right?

I put it to you that the researchers involved in this study are at least as knowledgeable as you on this topic. That the conclusions you have considered after reading an article based on their research is likely to have occurred to them (it's not especially novel) and the reason it isn't mentioned is that it has been dismissed.

at least as likely

I'd appreciate you sharing the methodology by which you reached that evaluation.

The summary of the original paper is more cautious than the article (linked, above) and calls for more research to prove/disprove the possible link to climate and environmental changes.

Re:Well now we know how the cat is doing

[Luckyo]

Far more common case is that people who study trees carry pathogens that jump cross tree species. Another point is that studying trees involves invasive procedures like drilling holes in them to make assessments of age, and as any arborist worth his salt will tell you, older trees are very bad at recovering from such shocks than young trees.

Re:Well now we know how the cat is doing

[thomst]

An Anonymous Coward opined:

Pathogens are finding new territories worldwide as the climate change makes that possible, in fact. Sudden Oak Death is a perfect example.

Yes, pathogens are spreading globally. Whether that's related to climate change depends on the particular pathogen and the circumstances of its appearance in new locations.

I doubt SOD is an example of climate change-mediated pathogen migration. I think it's far more likely that it was imported on the shoes of hikers who had previously visited South Asia. There are lots of Northern Californians who have traveled to Nepal, for instance, or to popular locations in the Himalayan foothills in India, such as Jammu and Kashmir, where SOD is suspected to have originated, who also enjoy hiking in California state and national parks.

It's a fact that researchers themselves were important vectors for SOD in California. (It was, as you might expect, kind of a big deal there - and those researchers were very publicly apologetic once they realized what they'd accidentally done.)

I'm just glad the oaks on our property weren't infected ...

Re:Well now we know how the cat is doing

[thomst]

blindseer commented:

Using "suddenly" and "over 12 years" together does not compute.

I beg to disagree.

When several 1500-2000 year old trees die in the same area over a period of 12 years, for no apparent reason, I'd call that "sudden."

In fact, that's exactly what I did call it. In terms of your analogy, if a half-dozen 150-year-olds die in the same area over a period of 12 months, for no apparent reason, I'd also call that "sudden," because it's the cluster of deaths that would make them stand out. One 150-year-old dying for no apparent reason is just a datum. 3 or more dying in the same area over a short time (relative to the length of their lives) is unusual enough to warrant a search for a common cause, rather than simply saying, "Oh, well. They were old. What can you do?"

Were I living in that area, and approaching my 150th birthday, I'd certainly want answers - and a ticket to somewhere else ... !