Earth's Oldest Trees in Climate-Induced Race Up the Tree Line

“We are seeing very little regeneration anywhere in bristlecone ranges except in the tree line and, there, limber pine is taking all the good spots,” said the study’s corresponding author Brian Smithers, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis. “It’s jarring because limber pine is a species you normally see further downslope, not at tree line. So it’s very odd to see it charging upslope and not see bristlecone charging upslope ahead of limber pine, or at least with it.”

The study concludes that if bristlecone pine trees are unable to advance upslope because they are blocked by limber pine, bristlecones could face a reduction of their range and possibly local extinctions.

EARTH’S OLDEST LIVING TREES

Bristlecone pine trees are Earth’s oldest individual trees and can live for more than 5,000 years. No spring chicken, limber pine trees can live 2,000 years or more.

Both tree species have seen many climate changes during their time on Earth — from extremely warm periods to ice ages — and have slowly advanced across the landscape. Over millennia, bristlecone pine trees have moved from the lowlands of the Great Basin up to the current tree line. But, the study notes, neither bristlecone nor limber pine have ever experienced climate change and temperature increases as rapidly as what has been occurring in recent decades.

LEGACY EFFECTS

Smithers said he doesn’t expect bristlecone pine adult trees to be impacted much by current climatic shifts, as those trees are well-established. But how, if and where new bristlecone pine trees will regenerate is less certain, particularly as other species like limber pine take up valuable space for them to germinate.

“The things we’re doing today have legacy effects for thousands of years in the Great Basin,” Smithers said. “When those trees do start to die, they won’t likely be replaced because it’s just too hot and dry.”

The study suggests that land managers identify the specific bottlenecks for a species to live long enough to reproduce, and focus on that stage. For long-lived trees like bristlecone and limber pines, the bottleneck is at the time of their initial establishment, not hundreds and thousands of years into their adulthoods.

Kat Kerlin