<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/22/victoria-mountain-ash-forests-could-lose-quarter-giant-trees-temperatures-rise>
"Victoria’s mountain ash forests are thinning rapidly as the globe heats up,
and could lose a quarter of their “giant” trees that grow up to 80m tall in the
coming decades, research has found.
Forests of
Eucalyptus regnans – one of the tallest tree species in the world
– lose about 9% of their trees for every degree of warming, according to a
University of Melbourne-led study published in
Nature Communications.
“These are giants,” said lead author Dr Raphael Trouve. “They are the tallest
flowering plant on Earth – that means they regularly reach 60 to 80m tall.”
The researchers analysed data collected from mountain ash forests over more
than 50 years to determine tree mortality rates and forest carrying capacity –
the maximum number of trees of a given size that the forest can sustain.
They found that forests growing in the warmest conditions had the lowest
carrying capacity, which further decreased with rising temperatures.
“We found that for each extra degree of temperature, the number of trees that
the forest can sustain drops by 9%,” Trouve said. “By 2080 – with three extra
degrees, as we expect – that tallies up to around a quarter of the trees gone.”
The estimated forest loss did not include the additional impact of bushfires,
which are expected to grow in severity as the planet warms up."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
