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

Well now we know how the cat is doing

[SuperKendall]

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

HMM.

Re:Well now we know how the cat is doing

[oic0]

Nope! definitely climate change. Always climate change.

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:Well now we know how the cat is doing

[DarkOx]

Makes you wonder. I have a oak that is about a century old on my property. The damn carpenter ants are attacking it. The arborist checked it out recently (I love this giant old tree). He said there is not much you can do. Bugs get oaks eventually its what ultimately kills them all. You take it down or you can just wait and let it fall down when its time comes (it won't hit anything but other trees) is what I was advised.

He also told me trees that age don't recover from shocks as easily as younger trees. Don't limb it anymore, if you want to let it go and see how long she lasts. Only cut obviously dead limbs out. Otherwise leave it alone, look enjoy don't touch. Was the rest of his advice.

A few points
1) Trees like all organisms have a finite life span (maybe these baobab trees are just getting to that age)
2) Trees like all things can only take so much abuse maybe being studied is in someway harmful to them.

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

[plover]

This has long been a concern of mine. Our area used to be in agricultural "Zone 2", meaning we'd usually experience a few day snap of -22F winter weather. This killed off a wide variety of non-native pests, such as those that arrived here on trucks and railcars from warmer clones during the summers. After a decade of record warm winters, we've been re-classified as Zone 4 and the transient beasts never die off now. So we've now got emerald ash borers; gypsy moths; new wasps, bees, and ants; and various roaches and snakes we've never had to deal with before, They're killing vast numbers of native trees and plants.

Re:Well now we know how the cat is doing

[Tablizer]

Dr. Schrodinger examined them.

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 ... !

Re:Well now we know how the cat is doing

[fatwilbur]

I call BS on this anecdote after reading into it.. most agricultural zone systems have levels separated by multiple degrees (F), and there's no place on earth that's experienced that level of warming over a single decade. The periods like that which I can find (they do exist) were typically in the past and part of random noise in the data; eg. there were always periods of very cold winters to follow. No different from flipping heads 10 times in a row - it does occur in large variable data sets but not common. Even the reference documentation I can find (all climate change advocate sites) note changes to ag zones typically occur over 30 year periods or more.

While local fauna may no doubt have to adapt to new threats in the future, the much, much larger and quicker threat is invasive species introduction by human means.

Oh and know what else that ag zone shift means? The area can support growing much more food, and much more valuable food.

Re:Well now we know how the cat is doing

[arglebargle_xiv]

The purpose of the study was to learn how these Africans become so enormous

Two words for the scientists: "Chicken Licken".

Re:Well now we know how the cat is doing

[Anonymous Coward]

over 50 some years my area has gone from a low zone 4 to a mid zone 5... while we haven't been reclassified officially on the maps, the reality is the annual low temperatures aren't getting down to the -30f they used too... they are only getting down to -15F or -10F...

If a region was a high zone 2 they could very reasonable be a zone 4 now...

So I call BS on your call of BS, because I've watched it happen as I've been gardening, but if that's not enough, here is some data from a meteorologist... https://blogs.mprnews.org/updraft/2016/01/thursday-thaw-how-cold-will-minnesota-get-this-winter/

Re:Well now we know how the cat is doing

[religionofpeas]

Well get rid of the carpenter ants, anyway.

Or ask them to make you a bookshelf, or something. Try to keep them busy with useful stuff instead of eating trees.

Re:Well now we know how the cat is doing

[Citizen of Earth]

If anything kills plants dead, it's CO2!

Confirmation Bias

[Tulsa_Time]

Get ready.

Well, what did they think would happen?

[ScentCone]

You stop using ground-up rhinoceros horn fertilizer on the trees, and look what happens.

Re:Wow

[Fly Swatter]

or at least their oldest parts/stems have collapsed and died

So they still have newer growth that is not dead, so.... Not even dead yet.

As to a political angle, couldn't care less about that.

Re:Segregation is the answer

[vux984]

"Remove all minorities back to their origin"

Quick Mexico! Flood the borders. If you can tilt the scales so that you have the majority, this asshat has just agreed to deport himself and his kind and confine himself to Britain or Holland or whatever.

I mean, that's assuming he's american, and white, and a he... but who is going to be against that here?

Must be climate change with humans, too.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

In other news: The oldest humans on the planet are dying, or having parts of their bodies fail, MUCH more often than even those a few years younger.

(According to the Social Security administration's Period Life Table for 2015, the probability of death within a year for a person 119 years old is 90%, while at 107 years it's only 50%. Research papers and tables compiled by other insurance operations give similar numbers.)

Baobab tree trunks are not a single stem growing from the roots, but a cluster of them, of varying ages. This looks like a strategy for achieving long life for the overall organism without having to achieve long life for all of its parts: Just grow additional trunk stems. When the older ones get feeble and die off, the younger ones are still there and take over. (Of course sometimes you end up with a lot of old ones, and losing most of them all at once is the end of the show.)

This is not to say that the deaths observed here are NOT caused, in whole or great part, by climate change or some other stress in recent years. But the study seems to be just a recent look, with nothing in the past to compare it to. So while it indicates that, recently, the oldest individuals and oldest chunks of them died off more than the younger instances, it does nothing to distinguish whether this is the normal condition of the trees vs. the result of something recent.

Re:I hope most of humanity is next

[ChrisMaple]

nothing of value will be lost.

Of value to whom? In order to reach what goal?

We are human beings, and the proper purpose of all human action is to make things better for humans.

Re:I hope most of humanity is next

[jwhyche]

No we are not, but you are a idiot. I've tried to take the high road lately but this kind of talk is just imbecile.

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.

Don't give up on mankind... just yet

[Alwin Henseler]

Maybe you're right, and this planet deserves to get rid of humans. But look at it this way:

In geological / planetary timescales, humans have only been around for the blink of an eye. Yes we're stupid. Careless. Stomping out species wherever we go. Using this planet's resources wasteful. Poisoning its air, soil & waters. And it probably wouldn't hurt the planet's ecosystems if all humans disappeared yesterday.

BUT: we're also learning. Sloooowwwwly, yes, but learning. How to avoid mistakes made in the past. How to make more efficient use of resources. How to curb population growth (again: slooooowwwwly). How to clean up rivers & lakes. And in a few cases, how to revive almost-extinct animal or plant species. Or at least preserve a few living specimens in zoos, gardens and seed banks around the world. Over time, chances are we'll become better stewards of this planet than some of our ancestors were.

Now suppose all humans would disappear in short order. The planet would go through some climate change cycles. Many species would disappear. New species would evolve. And perhaps a few million years from now another 'intelligent' (?) species might evolve. Probably only to make the same mistakes again. Or worse.

So... give us time. Mechanisms are in place to bring humans to a halt should things get out of hand. Like a limit on amount of arable land. Oil running out. Or climate change, turning some population centres into un-liveable areas. One way or another, at some point something will have to give.

When naked survival is at stake, humans can learn quick & become very inventive. If / when we learn, both ourselves and our planet may turn out for the better. And should we spread out over the solar system (or even further out) and take those lessons with us, perhaps not make the same mistakes elsewhere.

So if you care: try and do your bit. Help others do the same. And be patient. We're not done on this planet. And this planet is not done with us. Not yet, anyway... :-)

Re:Life does not thrive

[rahvin112]

You aren't any kind of biological expert of any kind. This has nothing to do with CO2 affecting the tree, it's about the change in the climate, in particular in this case changing rainfall patterns in the area of the world where these trees grow.

They are blaming climate change because the trees exist in a part of the world that has seen one of the biggest changes in rainfall in the world over the last 20 years with around a 40% reduction in annual rainfall for over two decades. That change in rainfall amount has a drastic effect on the oldest trees because they are less able to handle changes and need significant amounts of water due to their size.

Re:Life does not thrive

[bane2571]

You're right but I never once said that climate change specifically didn't harm the Baobabs, what I did say was that there is no mechanism mentioned only the nebulous "Climate change" which is generally, warmer temps, more CO2. Surely you would agree that for an incredibly heat tolerant, low water species like the Baobab, those two specific factors increasing should at least have no effect and at best be helpful.

You've thrown in a few other red herrings that are not related to my point: "humidity, soil hydrometry, soil acidity, soil NH4 concentration" the article never mentions these as a mechanism for the death of the Baobab so the fact that they could have been, further proves my point. Your pollinator point is flawed because these are not species failing because of lack of reproduction, they are individuals dying.

I want to reiterate that my main point was that there is no claimed process by which climate change killed these trees, only a statement that it did. That just feels dishonest, "Climate Change" should never be seen as some monolithic beast that just makes bad stuff happen, it makes anyone claiming that look simple.