Genus metasequoia3/18/2023 It encourages reforestation with species that have thrived in the region in the recent geological history. One approach is a “conservative conservationist”, aiming to preserve the existing ecosystems as they are, in hope that the climate breakdown can eventually be halted and even reversed. Although it’s a slightly simplified picture, we can say there are two main schools of thought in ecology and forestry community regarding this issue. Not all scientists agree that this approach is the best. With another retired scientist, the ecologist Tony Burgess, Berg has now planted Metasequoia and about 30 other non-native tree species around a cooperative farm in Homer to try again to foresee what trees might thrive in the region in the seemingly imminent hotter future. And in 2015, already retired, he predicted the spread of the spruce beetle induced tree mortality further north – and unfortunately, he was right. Twenty years ago he established the link between climate change and a die-off of spruce trees in the region. Here we’re talking about a few million years.“, Berg stated in Anchorage Daily News.īerg was a pioneer of proving links between major biological events and climate change. We’ll probably see lots of things growing here, for better or worse, that haven’t been able to grow for a long time. Licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence. They are doing it not out of curiosity, but out of need – the native spruce trees are increasingly dying in the warming climate, mostly because of the pests and diseases associated with it.Īlong with the redwood, they are also trying out other species that are encountered in a more temperate climate.ĭawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) a “living fossil” in West Sussex, England. However, because of global warming, the Dawn redwood might unexpectedly make it back to the wilderness of its ancient habitats in North America.Įd Berg, a retired botanist residing in Homer, Alaska, reveals that Homer farmers are trying to grow the metasequoia. They are now popular ornamental plants around the world. Soon after the war, scientists have collected the seeds and, through university reproduction programs, brought them into modernity. During the Second World War, the Dawn redwood was rediscovered in the Szechuan province in China. Today, the fossilized redwoods are still visible there in the layers of rocks and coal, given away by the characteristic grains and knots of tree tissues.Īs the Earth’s climate cooled, the entire genus went extinct – or at least we thought so. Graph: NPS, public domain.ĭue to the then-primarily tropical climate, the Metasequoia range stretched as far as Northern Canada and Alaska. Height comparison between the Dawn Redwood, Giant Sequoia, and the Coast Redwood. For about 35 million years, they had been dominant in forests throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The genus Metasequoia consisted of tall, fast-growing, deciduous conifers that used to be common from late Cretaceous to Miocene. In fact, it is one of the rare tree species that is considered a living fossil. Dawn redwood ( Metasequoia glyptostroboides), is a “cousin” of the better-known Giant sequoia and the Coast sequoia – and a really ancient cousin too.
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