Trees News

November 19, 2024

Top Headlines

Tree Islands Restore Nature in Oil Palm Plantations

Nov. 18, 2024 — Southeast Asia's tropical forests are renowned for their biodiversity, but at the same time face significant threats from the expansion of oil palm plantations. With global demand for palm oil rising, the urgency for effective restoration strategies ...

Diverse and Diverging Demands on Forests in Germany

Nov. 14, 2024 — Forests provide biodiversity, ecosystem functions, income and much more. How can these diverse and seemingly diverging demands be met? An international research team addressed this question by analyzing the effects of enriching beech forests in ...

First Amber Find on the Antarctic Continent

Nov. 12, 2024 — Roughly 90 million years ago, climatic conditions in Antarctica were suitable for resin-producing trees. Researchers have now made the southernmost discovery of amber in the ...

How Plants Grow Thicker, Not Just Taller

Nov. 7, 2024 — Using a computer model that reveals how plants grow thicker over time, biologists have uncovered how cells are activated to produce wood tissue. Understanding the genetic and molecular signals behind this growth, they hope to advance forestry ...

Latest Headlines

updated 7:18pm EST

New Study Reveals Half a Century of Change on Britain's Iconic Limestone Pavements

Nov. 14, 2024 — Fifty years of change on iconic limestone pavements has revealed mixed fortunes for one of the most distinctive landscapes in the UK. The findings, ...

More Evidence That Europe's Ancient Landscapes Were Open Woodlands: Oak, Hazel and Yew Were Abundant

Nov. 12, 2024 — A new study finds that the disturbance-demanding plant species oak, hazel and yew were abundant in Europe's forests before modern humans arrived, ...

Facing the Wind: How Trees Behave Across Various Forest Settings and Weather Events

Nov. 12, 2024 — A recent study on Cryptomeria japonica plots shows that trees dissipate wind energy by switching between two swaying behaviors at specific wind ...

Planting Trees in the Arctic Could Make Global Warming Worse, Not Better, Say Scientists

Nov. 7, 2024 — Tree planting has been widely touted as a cost-effective way of reducing global warming, due to trees' ability to store large quantities of carbon ...

How Gophers Brought Mount St. Helens Back to Life in One Day

Nov. 6, 2024 — When Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, lava incinerated anything living for miles around. As an experiment, scientists dropped gophers onto parts of the scorched mountain for only 24 hours. The ...

Indigenous Cultural Burning Has Protected Australia's Landscape for Millennia, Study Finds

Nov. 1, 2024 — Ancient cultural burning practices carried out by Indigenous Australians limited fuel availability and prevented high intensity fires in southeastern ...

Trees Cool Better Than Reflective Roofs in Vulnerable Houston Neighborhoods

Nov. 1, 2024 — As heatwaves become more intense, cities are looking for strategies that can help keep neighborhoods cooler. A new tool has already helped identify potential solutions in Houston, a city where the ...

Move Along, Moose: Study Reveals the 'Most Canadian' Animals

Oct. 25, 2024 — What is the 'most Canadian' animal? Spoiler: it's not the beaver, or the moose. A new study ranks species of terrestrial vertebrates in Canada by their level of Canadian evolutionary distinctness: ...

Crustacean With Panda-Like Coloring Confirmed to Be a New Species

Oct. 24, 2024 — Decades after it was first found in Japan, a crustacean species with unique black-and-white coloring resembling a panda has been confirmed to be new to ...

Marri Trees a Lifeline for Many Native Bee Species in Biodiversity Hotspot

Oct. 23, 2024 — New research has revealed Marri trees are critical to the survival of more than 80 species of native bee in Western Australia's South West region, which is one of the world's most biologically rich ...

Finding Could Help Turn Trees Into Affordable, Greener Industrial Chemicals

Oct. 18, 2024 — Specific molecular property of lignin in trees determines difficulty of using microbial fermentation to turn trees and other plants into industrial ...

Seven New Frog Species Discovered in Madagascar: Sounds Like Something from Star Trek

Oct. 15, 2024 — Researchers have discovered seven new species of tree frogs that make otherworldly calls in the rainforests of Madagascar. Their strange, high-pitched whistling calls sound more like sound effects ...

Modern Mass Extinction in an Ecuadorean Cloud Forest Found to Be a Mirage

Oct. 15, 2024 — An international team of botanists finds no proof of extinctions in Centinela, but abundant evidence that Centinela's flora lives on in the scattered remaining fragments of coastal ...

Adaptability of Trees Persists After Millions of Years of Climate Change

Oct. 14, 2024 — Seven of the most common forest trees in Europe have been shown to be able to shelter their genetic diversity from major shifts in environmental conditions. This is despite their ranges having shrunk ...

Smoke from Megafires Puts Orchard Trees at Risk

Oct. 2, 2024 — Exposure to megafire smoke can reduce yields of almond, walnut and pistachio trees. Study shows smoke reduces a tree's energy reserves long after a fire ...

Discovery of 3,775-Year-Old Preserved Log Supports 'Wood Vaulting' as a Climate Solution

Sep. 27, 2024 — A new study suggests that an ordinary old log could help refine strategies to tackle climate change. A team of researchers analyzed a 3,775-year-old log and the soil it was excavated from. Their ...

Who Lives in the Treetops? DNA-Collecting Drone Provides Insights

Sep. 26, 2024 — Squinting into the treetops won't reveal the tiny organisms up there. But these creatures leave clues, in the form of DNA, on the leaves and branches. Now, researchers report that they have ...

Harvests, Wildfires, Epidemics: How the Jet Stream Has Shaped Extreme Weather in Europe for Centuries

Sep. 25, 2024 — Tree-ring data reveal that periodic shifts in strong winds high above the Earth's surface have driven opposite climates in different parts of Europe for the past 700 years and likely much ...

These Tadpoles Have Discovered a Unique Way of Not Contaminating Their Water Supply: Not Pooping

Sep. 25, 2024 — The Eiffinger's tree frog found in Japan has a unique biological adaptation: its tadpoles do not defecate during their early developmental stages to reduce the risk of contaminating their small ...

A New Forecasting Model Based on Gene Activity Predicts When Japan's Cherry Buds Awake from Dormancy

Sep. 19, 2024 — Researchers have developed a model that uses gene activity to predict when Somei Yoshino cherry tree buds awake from dormancy. Their findings could not only help improve the accuracy of flowering ...

Rugged Falklands Landscape Was Once a Lush Rainforest

Sep. 18, 2024 — A researcher has found evidence that the treeless, rugged, grassland landscape of the Falkland Islands was home to a lush, diverse rainforest up to 30 million years ...

How Gaps in the Canopy of a Floodplain Influence Microclimate and Soil Biological Activity

Sep. 16, 2024 — Canopy gaps in a mixed floodplain forest have a direct effect on forest soil temperature and moisture, but only have a minor impact on soil biological ...

Self-Medicating Gorillas and Traditional Healers Provide Clues for New Drug Discovery

Sep. 11, 2024 — Four plants consumed by wild gorillas in Gabon and used by local communities in traditional medicine show antibacterial and antioxidant properties, researchers ...

Study Shows Reduced Inflammation in Residents After Adding Trees to Their Neighborhoods

Aug. 27, 2024 — A new project has found that people living in neighborhoods where the number of trees and shrubs was more than doubled showed lower levels of a blood marker of inflammation than those living outside ...

Next Time You Beat a Virus, Thank Your Microbial Ancestors

Aug. 21, 2024 — When you get infected with a virus, some of the first weapons your body deploys to fight it were passed down to us from our microbial ancestors billions of years ago. According to new research, two ...

Environmental Laws Failing to Slow Deforestation

Aug. 20, 2024 — Australia's environmental laws are failing to stop high rates of tree clearing to make way for agriculture, development and ...

'Masters of Shape-Shifting': How Darkling Beetles Conquered the World

Aug. 20, 2024 — Large-scale genomic analysis of darkling beetles, a hyper-diverse insect group of more than 30,000 species worldwide, rolls back the curtain on a 150-million-year evolutionary tale of one of ...

Less Severe Forest Fires Can Reduce Intensity of Future Blazes

Aug. 19, 2024 — Low- and moderate-severity forest wildfires can reduce the intensity of future fires, according to new research on ...

Study Reveals Urban Trees Suffer More from Heat Waves and Drought Than Their Rural Counterparts

Aug. 13, 2024 — A recent study details how trees in New York City and Boston are more negatively impacted by heat waves and drought than trees of the same species in nearby rural forests. The finding highlights the ...

Mature Forests Vital in Frontline Fight Against Climate Change

Aug. 12, 2024 — Mature forests have a key role to play in the fight against climate change -- extracting carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and locking it into new ...