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Scientists rush to save 1,000-year-old trees on the brink of death
Scientists rush to save 1,000-year-old trees on the brink of death
By Sarah Kaplan
Updated July 15, 2022 at 1:20 p.m. EDT | Published July 14, 2022 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
{snip}
A bristlecone pine tree on the trail to Telescope Peak, in the Panamint Mountain Range of the Death Valley National Park, Calif. (Sundry Photography/iStockphoto/Getty Images)
The trees had stood for more than 1,000 years. Their sturdy roots clung to the crumbling mountainside. Their gnarled limbs reached toward the desert sky. The rings of their trunks told the story of everything they’d witnessed — every attack they’d rebuffed, every crisis they’d endured. Weather patterns shifted; empires rose and fell; other species emerged, mated, migrated, died. But here, in one of the harshest environments on the planet, the bristlecone pines survived. It seemed they always would.
Until the day in 2018 when Constance Millar ascended the trail to Telescope Peak — the highest point in Death Valley National Park — and discovered hundreds of dead and dying bristlecones extending as far as she could see.
The trees’ needles glowed a flaming orange; their bark was a ghostly gray. Millar estimated that the damage encompassed 60 to 70 percent of the bristlecones on Telescope Peak.
“It’s like coming across a murder scene,” said Millar, an emerita research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service who has studied bristlecone pines for the better part of 40 years.
{snip}
A research group stands beside a rare Quercus tardifolia tree. (U.S. Botanic Garden)
{snip}
By Sarah Kaplan
Sarah Kaplan is a climate reporter covering humanity's response to a warming world. She previously reported on Earth science and the universe. Twitter https://twitter.com/sarahkaplan48
By Sarah Kaplan
Updated July 15, 2022 at 1:20 p.m. EDT | Published July 14, 2022 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
{snip}
A bristlecone pine tree on the trail to Telescope Peak, in the Panamint Mountain Range of the Death Valley National Park, Calif. (Sundry Photography/iStockphoto/Getty Images)
The trees had stood for more than 1,000 years. Their sturdy roots clung to the crumbling mountainside. Their gnarled limbs reached toward the desert sky. The rings of their trunks told the story of everything they’d witnessed — every attack they’d rebuffed, every crisis they’d endured. Weather patterns shifted; empires rose and fell; other species emerged, mated, migrated, died. But here, in one of the harshest environments on the planet, the bristlecone pines survived. It seemed they always would.
Until the day in 2018 when Constance Millar ascended the trail to Telescope Peak — the highest point in Death Valley National Park — and discovered hundreds of dead and dying bristlecones extending as far as she could see.
The trees’ needles glowed a flaming orange; their bark was a ghostly gray. Millar estimated that the damage encompassed 60 to 70 percent of the bristlecones on Telescope Peak.
“It’s like coming across a murder scene,” said Millar, an emerita research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service who has studied bristlecone pines for the better part of 40 years.
{snip}
A research group stands beside a rare Quercus tardifolia tree. (U.S. Botanic Garden)
{snip}
By Sarah Kaplan
Sarah Kaplan is a climate reporter covering humanity's response to a warming world. She previously reported on Earth science and the universe. Twitter https://twitter.com/sarahkaplan48
