16 ms·
Ancient redwoods recover from fire by sprouting 1000-year-old buds
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Almondsetat 3y agoDoes this mean trees have evolutionary countermeasures to fires? Does this in turn mean fires were so much more common than we think?
- qazxcvbnmlp 3y agoI can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not. But the answer to the first question has been known in the forestry community to be yes for quite some time. For instance - there are certain species that require the heat of a fire for their seeds to explode and grow new plants.
- Almondsetat 3y agoBelieve it or not: the forestry community is not that big Edit: and judging from the gratuitous downvotes, pretty petty as well
- abakker 3y agoI think the reason for downvotes here is that you don’t need to be in the forestry community to know this. It’s been in science textbooks since I was in 4th grade, kids did presentations and posters on it, it’s in documentaries, it’s on informational plaques in multiple national parks. The fact that some tree species are evolved to survive fires or require fires for germination is not controversial.
- yodon 3y agoIt's not that the forestry community is petty, it's more likely that the HN community doesn't like comments that don't add substantively to the conversation, and particularly doesn't like them as an add-on to a thoughtful and polite answer to a question.
- Almondsetat 3y agoDoubting my integrity by suggesting I'm being sarcastic just because I don't know something that clearly isn't common knowledge is thoughtful and polite?
- gausswho 3y agoThat describes me. Don't take downvotes as a remark on your position. I pass them out to anything that doesn't raise the level of discussion. I also hand them out to every top ancestor comment that uses the word 'downvote', for the same reason.
- roughly 3y agoIn California over the last few years, salience has led forestry and fire's place in it to become a bit less of a niche interest, at least certainly among the geekier/hn-leaning community.
- 23B1 3y agoMy understanding is that fires in forests are not only quite common and have been long before humans were around, but that naturally-occurring fires are a critical part of forest's natural lifecycle and evolution.
- retrac 3y agoFire has been a major force in the evolution of land-based life. Even more so in the distant past. In the Cretaceous (70 - 140 million years ago) both temperatures and the oxygen ratio in the atmosphere appear to have been higher than now. The whole planet was covered in a thick tropical forest -- and it burned easily. The dinosaurs had to contend with continent-wide forest fires, and their bones are often found in the middle of a layer of charcoal.
- VoodooJuJu 3y agoYes. Some species actually need fire for their seeds to activate at all. I'm surprised this isn't more widely known. I wonder what would change about climate activism and wildfire management if more people understood this.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bcrosby95 3y agoMaybe. But most fires in the California coast are human caused. Today, lightning is extremely rare. Furthermore, be careful extending this train of thought to other biomes. My understanding of California chaparral is it's evolved to survive fire, but if it happens too often the biome disappears and turns into grassland. Some of the plants take decades of recovery before they are capable of fruiting. Just because a species has evolved to survive fire doesn't necessarily mean it needs it.
- jwlake 3y agoMassive fire suppression is uniquely human.
- margalabargala 3y ago> But most fires in the California coast are human caused. Today, lightning is extremely rare. Is it actually any less common than it used to be, or are lightning fires simply a much smaller percentage of burning measured by fire count or acreage? I can't speak for CA but up in Oregon we regularly have lightning causing fires all summer.
- roughly 3y ago> But most fires in the California coast are human caused. Worth a note that regular usage of fire to clear underbrush was a very, very long standing practice among the native population - long enough to have affected the landscape and the trees in it.
- TedDoesntTalk 3y agoEven places like New Jersey have done prescribed burns for the last 100 years (source: ex-resident))
- mistrial9 3y agoecosystems of trees differ greatly across the globe. Here in California, one widely cited reference article on this topic is doi:10.1093/biosci/bix146 Drought, Tree Mortality, and Wildfire in Forests Adapted to Frequent Fire Stephens, et al. 2018
- ryaneager 3y agoYes, they do the bark of a redwood trees is fire resistance, and even certain seeds in the forest need fire in order to start their germination.
- mytailorisrich 3y agoIn areas prone to fire some plants do have evolutionary adaptation. In the Mediterranean, cork oaks have thick bark (which we use to make cork for wine bottles...) that scorches while the tree survives. The seeds of Australian acacias need the heat from wildfires in order to germinate. In some cycads the heat of fire triggers blooming, and gardeners stick hay in the crown and set it on fire in order to get a bloom and seeds. Etc.
- wongarsu 3y agoTrees native to many areas have developed evolutionary countermeasures to fires. Trees native to many other areas haven't. Some trees have measures to recover from being eaten or destroyed by large animals, and often those measures work equally well if the tree was damaged by fire or even burned down completely. Trees are such a diverse group of plants that it's hard to say anything about them in aggregate
- SonOfLilit 3y agoIf a tree lives on average for 200 years, and has a mortality rate of 100% in a forest fire, you don't need fires to be very common for adaptations to fire to be worth it. Just one fire in each forest every 2,000 years or so would be enough. 20,000 years should do too, but I'm less confident of this. Was lighting more common? Probably not. Were forests bigger and less gardened to prevent spread of fire? Definitely. So for each tree, there was a much larger area of vulnerability to lightning strikes.
- suzzer99 3y agoThis is certainly true for the American West. Unfortunately in places like Patagonia the lenga trees never had to adapt to natural fire, so man-made fires are catastrophic.
- pvaldes 3y ago> Were forests bigger and less gardened to prevent spread of fire? Definitely. So for each tree, there was a much larger area of vulnerability to lightning strikes. May be. We can't be sure about that. Those forests housed a lot of megafauna. I can easily imagine American mammooths "gardening" the forest and removing everything green and edible from the soil. Giant slots, giant rhinos like Paraceratherium, Giant marsupials like Diprotodon, elephants and other mega herbivores most probably roamed searching the huge bulk of plant products that they needed each day. They most probable needed to complete its diet with suboptimal food like fallen leaves, barks, branches and dry weeds to reach its quota. Most of that megafauna went extinct by men and that can't be fixed. Of those that survived, the 60% of the extant big herbivores are in danger of going extinct now, so the problem could take a big turn for worse. European bison was a candidate to reintroduction for the possible benefit of cleaning branches, thorn shrubs and flammable materials from forests soils that cattle don't touch.
- dboreham 3y agoSome species of tree have cones that need to be burned before they will open. So, probably yes.
- bcbrown 3y agoAbsolutely, many trees have evolutionary countermeasures to fires. Some trees are very well-suited to colonized disturbed ground - they will opportunistically surge into an area after a wildfire, as either more of their seeds will germinate, or more seedlings will sprout into favorable conditions. Other trees have adaptations that make it more likely to survive wildfire; both sequoia and douglas-fir have layers of insulating bark up to a foot thick. Some trees have adaptations to ensure that their seeds only spread after a wildfire; sequoia cones are sealed shut by a resin that only melts in the intense heat of a wildfire. Some species can even be thought of as having adaptations that encourage wildfires in order to out-compete species that are less wildfire-resistant; grasslands require wildfire on the shoulders of foothills, where otherwise trees would gradually creep down the slopes. The dry foliage at the end of summer provides ideal conditions for wildfires. If you want to learn more about fire adaptation, an excellent entry point is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serotiny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serotiny.
- danrl 3y agoHere in the U.S. west coast mountains some land owners started controlled fires on their property to get rid of the stacking fuel naturally while preserving the bound minerals and helping the large redwoods and sequoias to fend of contenders. I have no idea how they managed to get a permit in this area where officials and population ate crazily scared of these natural processes given that uncontrolled fires make the news every year. Also, a second generation redwood forest looks very different from an undisturbed one I recently learned from a forest guy who walked with me. He was reading the forest like a book. Very impressive. Turns out, my forest is a second generation and I should maybe take down a few redwoods, something I considered morally wrong before the walkthrough.
- retrac 3y agoPrescribed burns (intentional, hopefully controlled, fires) are increasingly common in modern forestry and wildfire prevention. They're done in Canada and Australia, and from a quick search, it was brought back into practice in the 1990s in the USA. Parks Canada has an interesting FAQ about their practices: https://parks.canada.ca/nature/science/conservation/feu-fire/feuveg-fireveg/dirige-prescribed/faq https://parks.canada.ca/nature/science/conservation/feu-fire...
- prawn 3y agoIn South Australia, they're very much monitored and controlled. In the Northern Territory however, it is not uncommon in season to see fires burning beside the highway in a national park, and no one anywhere nearby monitoring them. Well, that is besides birds who hang around to nab fleeing insects and other creatures. Birds have been known to carry burning twigs elsewhere to spread the fire too. Coming from the former region and visiting the latter, it's quite jarring. But that (now called) mosaic burning has thousands of years of history. You can easily see how it advantaged the early occupants of the area: reduce overall fuel load, flush out animals to hunt, and clear annoying tall, dry grasses which would be miserable to live amongst and walk through.
- superchroma 3y agoIn Western Australia they are a racket. Land is burned for burning's sake as an area of required burning is defined and people rush to hit a quota. Studies are showing that land left untouched for years is actually less flammable than land in the medium turn after burn-off. Additionally, the effects on air quality cannot be discounted either. It is a politicized issue and people are terrified of being seen as not doing anything to combat bushfires that would otherwise threaten homes.
- mathgradthrow 3y agoThe ents are going to war!
- vinnymac 3y agoWhenever I read these stories I wonder what I can do to maintain the forest on my own property better. Curious if anyone here has any books they would recommend on tree identification and maintenance?
- agilob 3y agohttps://old.reddit.com/r/marijuanaenthusiasts/ https://old.reddit.com/r/marijuanaenthusiasts/
- pvaldes 3y agoa lot of people can identify trees on internet. Just describe your trees
- contingencies 3y agoArborists learn all sorts of things including climbing, rope work, safety with saws, root structures, etc. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arborist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arborist for an overview. If you just want to ID trees, take photos of as many of the base, bark, leaves, flowers, seeds and general growth habit as you can, then upload to iNaturalist.org to get an ID.
- onetimeuse92304 3y agoAs far as my understanding, nothing much different from what other plants do. Anybody with any experience with home plants will know that for most plants if you cut off the tip of the plant/branch (places where new growth happens) it will promote sprouting more branches in lower parts of the plant. Most plants will have special places where new growth can happen and experienced florist/gardener can exploit this to shape the plant to their desire. As far as I understand, there is a chemical gradient that causes nutrients produced in roots to flow to the tips of the plant for growth. If you cut off the tips, there is no more a place where the chemicals are used and that abundance -- mismatch between the large root system and much less ability to consume -- is what triggers new growth. Here, you have an enormous tree with developed root system but you essentially killed/cut off the upper part. The abundance of nutrients causes new growth.
- blindriver 3y agoI remember when Big Basin south of the Bay Area was on fire in 2020. The alarmists were talking about how the fires were so especially intense that the region would never recover. I said at the time they were all full of hogwash, and there's nothing particularly special about the fire and it would recover. Heaps upon heaps of insults were laid upon me. Guess what, I was right. Every time humans think they know better than nature, they are wrong. Humans interpret things like forest fires as "bad" just like they think rain is "bad" but there's no good or bad in nature, just cycles, and every time we have the hubris to think we know better, like trying to stop forest fires, we are wrong. We need to just step out of the way of Mother Nature and let her do what she does best, which is continue the cycle of life for herself.
- nly 3y agoYou're right but you can probably caveat that with natural cycles and not man made disasters
- spacephysics 3y agoWhat’s more man-made is artificially preventing wildfires so dead brush builds up then you have a far worse fire. Climate change isn’t causing wild fires. Wild fires are a natural part of nature’s cycle. What’s unnatural is us artificially delaying these cycles, then they come back 10x more intense. For cases where wild fires are directly caused by people (arson, bad camping practices), these fires are also more intense. This stuff happens all through the religion of science. I’m not a religious person, but time and time again the scientific community cries out “XYZ is bad/stupid/a relic of religion” then years later there’s some scientific evidence for it and we spend another 5 years pushing back against the scientific community to change from their old ways.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mistrial9 3y ago> Climate change isn’t causing wild fires. I get what you are trying to say, but that statement alone is too blunt to be accurate. Desertification, extended drought and record high temperatures do directly relate to causing fires.
- seansh 3y agoI highly recommend the book "The hidden life of trees". It shows trees in a different light by explaining their behaviors as a collective, how connected they are, and how they help each other survive and thrive over thousands of years. Did you know that trees can recognize their own offsprings?
- therealdrag0 3y agoWay too much anthropomorphism in that book imo.
- zakki 3y agoDoes tree feel the pain when we cut then?
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 3y agoIf so, it would be more humane to cut them down as quickly as possible so as to minimize their suffering. I recommend C4.
- roter 3y agoI assume you mean the explosive [0] not the plants [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-4_(explosive) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-4_(explosive) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_C4_plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_C4_plants
- jksk61 3y agoyes it is an interesting read, however you should know that some of their "facts" are highly speculative and some were proven wrong in the last decade.
- chrisweekly 3y agoAnyone interested in trees and/or great writing should read "The Overstory: A Novel", which earned author Richard Powers a well-deserved Pulitzer. Highly recommended.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pvaldes 3y agoLets play to "who can say the most flippant feel-good thing in biology?". The fact that there is not such thing as an 1000-year old bark or a 1000 year old buds does not matter. The growing part of the tree is only a few years old, and the buds lie in that part. Old cork is dead. Old wood is dead; just a bunch of tubes. Cambium is the alive part. I predict that there will be a severe wildfire season in US in 2024. If you read this articles, you will feel much better about the loss in any case.