Humans often feel stressed today. The challenges of daily living have significantly increased in the presence of modern technological advancements. Thinking about how much cluttered the world has become, it is easy to get lost amidst all the new technologies that define modern living. While we may think it is only us humans that get overwhelmed by the various contraptions we now use in our daily life, we are badly mistaken. There are other living beings that co-exist with us in this planet that is mostly always on the losing end against us.
I recently had questions about Autumn Blaze maple leaves turning red. Early fall color in trees has also been reported in other counties.
This is usually a sign that maples and other types of trees are responding to stressful growing conditions such as compacted soils, drought or extremes in temperatures. This may also be a response to mechanical damage.
Tightly compacted soil, consistently wet soils from overwatering and drought are detrimental to maples and other trees.
These conditions can cause trees to lose leaves or develop fall color early in the season. The stress is mainly a response to diminished oxygen or water supply to the roots.
Seeing these symptoms of stress in trees often indicate that if the conditions in their immediate environment do not change and they continue to be exposed to these dangers and risks, they will become more unhealthy and may even die in the next few months and years or so. Their death is not always sudden because the tree still attempts to cope until it can’t any longer.
As the number of droughts increases globally, scientists are working to develop predictions of how future parched conditions will affect plants, especially trees.
New results published today in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution by 62 scientists, led by Henry Adams at Oklahoma State University, synthesized research from drought manipulation studies and revealed the mechanisms by which tree deaths happen.
"Understanding drought is critical to managing our nation's forests," says Lina Patino, a section head in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Earth Sciences, which co-funded the study through its Critical Zone Observatories program. "This research will help us more accurately predict how trees will respond to environmental stresses, whether drought, insect damage or disease."
Adds Liz Blood, director of NSF's MacroSystems Biology program, which co-funded the research, "Droughts are simultaneously happening over large regions of the globe, affecting forests with very different trees. The discovery of how droughts cause mortality in trees, regardless of the type of tree, allows us to make better regional-scale predictions of droughts' effects on forests."
(Via: https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=242634)
Poor soil, extreme temperatures, and other forms of physical damage a tree may sustain can put it at higher risk of disease and insect attacks leaving these poor trees silently hurting and enduring their own internal battles. We may shrug this off and make ourselves believe that trees getting sick and dying are none of our business, but no, we are all interconnected in this planet and our lives are intertwined in the delicate balance of life. Fewer trees mean not enough plants to suck in circulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and lead to the consequential problem we are now facing – climate change. All these little things add up and we eventually have no choice but to face the music sooner rather than later.
Trees Get Stressed Too is republished from All Clear Tree Service's Blog
source http://www.allcleartree.com/trimming/trees-get-stressed
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