Trees are some of the longest-lived organisms on Earth. Some conifer trees, such as giant redwoods, ginkgos and swamp cypresses can live for many hundreds of years, some even into the thousands. Typically, the oldest known flowering trees are less than 1000 years old but none the less this is three times the age of some of the oldest known vertebrate animals such as the Greenland sharks, and tortoises. ‘Demeter’, the oldest known sessile oak (Quercus petraea) is 934 years old, whilst there is a recorded individual of the bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) that has reached an age of 4856 years as of 2024! In addition to impressive longevity, trees are also highly responsive to their environment – they are plastic – and can adapt the parts they grow each year, such as new leaves and twigs, and even change their physiological behaviour- to deal with the prevailing conditions of the time. This plasticity means that trees are like giant biological sensors with potential to provide scientists with long-term datasets on the state on the environment. Trees are therefore ‘witnesses’ to climate change. At Trinity College Botanic Garden in 2022 we established an exciting new project called the Witness Tree project to track and study the responses of more than 20 specially selected ‘witness trees’ to atmospheric particulate pollution and to changes in atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
Our plan is to record data from the witness trees every year for the next 30 years to build up a valuable long-term data set. We are delighted that the National Botanic Garden’s joined the Witness Tree project in 2024 to provide an additional set of witness trees. More trees, means more data which will help us to understand which tree species are the most resilient to climate change and which can assist cities in mopping up harmful particulate pollution. Read more about the Witness Tree Project and meet the trees…
Reference:
Piovesan G, Biondi F. On tree longevity. New Phytologist. 2021 Aug;231(4):1318-37.
Recent media coverage of the Witness Tree Project
Scientists enlist “Witness Trees” to track climate change and pinpoint which species can best clean our air – Trinity College Dublin Website
Thirty-year ‘Witness trees’ project to see which are best at cleaning our air – Irish Examiner
Trinity College enlists ‘witness trees’ for 30-year project to track climate change and air pollution – Irish Independent
‘Witness trees’ to track Irish climate change over coming decades – Irish Times
Trinity scientists enlist ‘witness trees’ for climate tracking project – Silicon Republic