World's oldest living tree marker of climate change
12 May 2008 by Evoluted New Media
The world’s oldest recorded tree - clocking in at an ancient 9,550 years old - has been found in Sweden.
The world’s oldest recorded tree - clocking in at an ancient 9,550 years old - has been found in Sweden.
The researchers that found the tree - a spruce - say it is a tenacious survivor that has endured dramatic climate changes over time by growing between other trees and smaller bushes.
The team, from Umeå University, also found the remains of even more ancient spruce trees under the tree. Leif Kullman, Professor of Physical Geography said: “We found four ‘generations’ of spruce remains in the form of cones and wood. The discovery showed trees of 375, 5660, 9000 and 9,550 years old and they all appear to have the same genetic makeup as the trees above them. Since spruce trees can multiply with root penetrating braches, they can produce exact copies, or clones. The tree now growing above the finding place and the wood 9,550 years have the same genetic material.”
The actual date was examined using carbon-14 dating at a laboratory in Miami. Previously, pine trees in North America have been cited as the oldest at 4,000 to 5,000 years old. However, for many years the spruce tree has been regarded as a relative newcomer in the Swedish mountain region.
“Our results have shown the complete opposite, that the spruce is one of the oldest known trees in the mountain range,” said Kullman.
The tree has survived harsh weather conditions due to their ability to grow and push out another trunk as one dies. Kullam thinks that this change in trunk morphology could be a good marker of climate change.
He said: “There is evidence that spruces are the species that can best give us insight about climate change. The average increase in temperature during the summers over the past hundred years has risen one degree in the mountain areas. Therefore, we can now see that these spruces have begun to straighten themselves out.”
