Climate Change may doom the Bristlecone Pine

[n2doc]

A Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine tree in northern Colorado. This tree is approximately 1,100 years old.
By JIM ROBBINS
Published: September 27, 2010


GREAT BASIN NATIONAL PARK, Nev. — For millenniums, the twisted, wind-scoured bristlecone pines that grow at the roof of western North America have survived everything nature could throw at them, from bitter cold to lightning to increased solar radiation.


Living in extreme conditions about two miles above sea level, they have become the oldest trees on the planet. The oldest living bristlecone, named Methuselah, has lived more than 4,800 years.

Now, however, scientists say these ancient trees may soon meet their match in the form of a one-two punch, from white pine blister rust, an Asian fungus that came to the United States from Asia, via Europe, a century ago, and the native pine bark beetle, which is in the midst of a virulent outbreak bolstered by warming in the high-elevation West.

Blister rust is a new challenge to the pines. It spread to Europe from Asia in the 19th century and then was shipped unknowingly to the East and West Coasts of North America around the turn of the last century on nursery trees. Only now is it reaching the high-elevation bristlecone. Anna Schoettle, a Forest Service ecologist in Fort Collins, Colo., said, “Neither the bristlecones nor their ancestors have been faced with a disease like this, and they have not evolved tolerances.”

“So really we’re in uncharted territory,” she said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/science/28pines.html?_r=1

[kristopher]

1. :-(

K&R

[kestrel91316]

2. Whatever. I'm gonna hop in my Ford Excursion and drive down to the fertility clinic.

[Kolesar]

3. Someday, our country is going to be just a pounded pit of sand

With nothing special about it anywhere. No grand species will survive us. The only lion in Britain is on her coats of arms. The only grizzly in California is on her flag.

[Name removed]

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