- Author: UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources
Reposted from the UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources News
As fire once again sweeps through the American West, an interagency report formally released today estimates that 7,500 to 10,600 large giant sequoias were killed in last year's Castle Fire. This represents 10-14% of large sequoias in the world. Today, the agencies united by stewardship of giant sequoias are officially coming together in partnership, under the new Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition, to...
- Author: Jeannette Warnert
Reposted from the UCANR News
In 2020, 9,000 fires scorched more than 4 million acres of California, a record-breaking year, reported Alejandra Borunda in National Geographic. Fires burned through homes and oak forests, grasslands and pines — and also through patches of giant sequoias and coast redwoods, respectively the most massive and the tallest trees on earth.
Giant sequoias...
- Author: Robert Sanders
Reposted from UC Berkeley News
Todd Dawson's field equipment always includes ropes and ascenders, which he and his team use to climb hundreds of feet into the canopies of the world's largest trees, California's redwoods.
It's laborious work, but he'll soon be getting a little help. From drones.
- Author: Rob York
- Editor: Richard B Standiford
Summary
The vast majority of trees have roots that interact with below-ground fungi, together forming a 2-species complex known as mycorrhizae. In our study, which was recently published in the journal, Mycologia, we looked at the way roots of giant sequoia seedlings formed mychorrhizae relationships and how that influenced the growth of giant sequoia seedlings. Learning about how giant sequoia seedlings grow is particularly important since seedling establishment in giant sequoia has been below what is needed for long-term sustainability. We found that when we planted giant sequoia seedlings,...
- Author: Jaime Adler
Re-posted from UC Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management.
This image from a Nelder Plot at Blodgett Forest Research Station in the Sierra Nevada mountains is part of a study designed to find out how trees respond to different levels of competition for resources (light, water, and nutrients). The wagon-wheel pattern provides a space-efficient way to experimentally increase tree density as one gets closer to the center of the “spokes.”
The trees in the image are giant sequoia, a species that is particularly sensitive to competition. After only a few years, one can see from the image that trees near the...
