Will a 385 million year‐struggle for light become a struggle for water and for carbon?

January 31, 2024 Jeremiah Hendren

Will a 385 million year‐struggle for light become a struggle for water and for carbon?

Hartmann, Henrik
Global Change Biology 17, no. 1 (2011): 642-655
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2010.02248.x

The oldest tree-like plant fossil found in Gilboa, New York (USA) was dated to be 385 million years old. The plant had a long branchless trunk, a crown with frondlike branches and was about 8 m high (Stein et al., 2007). Subsequently, individual trees and evolving tree species had to compete for an increasingly limited and preemptable resource, light, and the development of the vertical structure of forest ecosystems can be considered the outcome of an evolutionary arms race (King, 1991; Falster & Westoby, 2003). Their large size (i.e. high canopy) creates environment conditions that allowed trees not only to persist but also to dominate terrestrial ecosystems for over 370 million years (Niklas, 1997). In their quest for light, tree size increased constantly, and contemporary tree species can grow up to impressive heights. For example, Sequoia sempervirens [(D. Don) Endl.] reaches up to more than 115 m into the sky (Van Pelt, 2002).

Henrik Hartmann

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