Latest news with #DavidBowman
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Hunters of Australia's rare 'giant trees' warn time running out to visit them: 'Biggest in the universe'
Australia's island state is home to the world's largest flowering trees (eucalyptus regnans), the tallest of which is a 96-metre giant called 'Centurion'. But a major threat could mean their days are numbered, prompting intrepid "big tree hunters" to venture into some of the country's most remote forests to photograph and measure them. The team located 18 trees taller than 90 metres, and the results were published by CSIRO in its Australian Journal of Botany. Lead author and researcher Brett Mifsud explained to Yahoo News his work is about 'marking a moment in time'. 'There's a fear factor here, that in 100 or even 50 years, the only record these trees ever existed will be photographs or a paper like this. Long after I'm gone, people will be asking, Really, there were trees that big?' he said. Related: National park program labelled 'complete madness' after shock find under ancient tree Worsening fire conditions are the biggest threat. As large trees develop over centuries, large fissures form in their trunks. Rare species including swift parrots need these hollows to nest in, but they also provide pathways for fire to enter the tree's trunk and gut it from the inside. 'When I surveyed the forests after the 2019 bushfires in Tasmania, even in places where the burning wasn't that hot, every single old tree I'd go to visit had been destroyed. Yet younger regrowth trees just near them had been scorched at the base, but they were fine,' he said. They're ripping trees, gobsmackingly large. The average person would be surprised to know they exist in Mifsud University of Tasmania fire scientist Professor David Bowman became involved in the research after hearing Mifsud warn during a public talk that half of the giant trees he'd been studying in Tasmania had been killed during the 2018/2019 bushfires, a year before Black Summer scorched the mainland. 'I'd been fixating, meditating on this. Fires are killing the biggest flowering plants in the universe. And that's just yet another diagnostic that things aren't quite right on planet Earth,' he told Yahoo. 'So I rang him and asked, 'Does anybody know about this?' And he said no.' 🔥 Incredibly rare outback discovery stumps Aussie farmer 📸 Remarkable footage captures return of rare predator 📍 Satellite image captures worrying find in proposed national park The majority of tall trees were already gone within the first 150 years of European settlement. Like the world's giant fish, they had been harvested to near extinction. Outside of Tasmania, few giant trees remain. Western Australia's tallest tree is 78 metres high, NSW has one that reaches 71 metres, and Queensland's highest is 72.8 metres. But there are no known trees above 70 metres in South Australia, the Northern Territory, or the ACT. Tall trees in Victoria are rare because only 1 per cent of its old-growth eucalyptus regnans forest is left after years of logging encouraged by successive state governments, but one survivor stretches to 93 metres. 'In Victoria's Strzelecki Ranges, there's a sign saying, 'Site of the world's tallest tree'. But there's nothing there today but a cleared paddock and a cyprus hedge,' Mifsud said. 'When people actually see a really big tree, they go, 'Wow, this truly is a relic from well before colonisation'. These trees take 500-plus years to get this big and they can be gone in an afternoon.' We've got the largest flowering plants on the planet, and it's taken 500 years for them to get there, but one fire could end Mifsud Climbing Australia's giant trees is like entering another world, with each trunk supporting an ecosystem of plants, animals and insects. "Wildlife doesn't see you as a danger and just climbs over you, whereas on the ground, it would probably be scurrying around," Mifsud said. "The scale of it all is remarkable. When you think of being a little kid, trying to put your hand around a branch. Well up there, some of the branches are almost a metre thick. Everything is enlarged." Before the Hawke Labor Government commissioned the Helsham inquiry into logging across Tasmania, virtually every surviving giant tree was located inside state forest that had been earmarked for logging. 'It was conservation campaigns and public awareness that pushed governments to make decisions to place some of them in World Heritage areas,' Mifsud added. 'Today when you go to a giant tree on this list, some of them are literally metres from clear-cut logging.' Mifsud, who works as a school teacher, has used his spare time to study tall trees for the last 35 years. Today he warns it could be the public's 'last chance' to see these giants before they are gone. "Climate change is increasing the severity of bushfires, and weather systems are changing. "That's my big fear," he said." 'Fires are getting worse. There's more dry lightning in Tasmania. There are drier, hotter, longer summers. Fire is their big enemy. So I urge people to maybe get out there and see the forest before it's too late.' Love Australia's weird and wonderful environment? 🐊🦘😳 Get our new newsletter showcasing the week's best stories.
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Global ‘gigantism' hotspot: Tasmanian tree standing at almost 100m tallest in the country
Australian researchers have documented the tallest and most massive living trees in Tasmania, a 'global hot spot of gigantism in plants', including 18 examples over 90 metres. Most of the largest and tallest were Eucalyptus regnans, commonly known as mountain ash, including a tree known as 'Centurion', measuring 96 metres, according to new research in the Australian Journal of Botany. Located in the state's Huon Valley, Centurion was once the world's second tallest specimen, behind 'Hyperion', a coastal redwood in California measuring 115.6 metres. But that was before bushfire damage in 2019 cost the mountain ash almost 4 metres in height and several rungs on the global is now ranked sixth among the tallest living species, behind the coastal redwood, a Himalayan cypress, sitka spruce, douglas fir and a tropical species from Malaysia, Shorea faguentiana. This made Australia, and especially Tasmania, a 'global hot spot of gigantism in plants', according to co-author Dr David Bowman, a professor of fire science at the University of Tasmania with a background in eucalypt ecology. Bowman said Tasmanian eucalypts were the 'kings and queens of the forest' that were achieving 'the physiological limit of what a giant tree can be'. They were able to reach their enormous size – in height and mass – due to Tasmania's 'cool nights, beautiful growing conditions in the day, an abundance of moisture', and had grown over hundreds of years without disturbance. Most of the 25 tallest trees in the state ranged in age between 320 and 500 years old, and according to the paper, they towered above the tallest known trees in other states. Related: Masked owls, wild devils and giant crayfish: inside the ancient forests of Tasmania's Takayna Victoria's tallest tree, a mountain ash dubbed 'Slinky Sloan', measured 93 metres. Western Australia followed with a 78 metre Karri tree, while Queensland's 'Big Bob', a flooded gum, measured 72.8 metres. In New South Wales, two different gum trees vied for top spot, both measuring 71 metres, while there were no known trees above 70 metres in South Australia, the Northern Territory or ACT. The paper also catalogued the largest examples of trees by trunk volume. The most massive – with a trunk measuring at 463m3, and a diameter of 6.14m – was 'easily the largest known tree in Australia'. These giants were an 'extraordinary expression of life', with significant cultural and environmental value, Bowman said. Yet many lacked official plans for their conservation, he said, and faced multiple threats due to their age, increasingly frequent and severe fires and climate change. The paper's co-author, Brett Mifsud, who has been gathering data on tall and giant trees in south-eastern Australia for close to 35 years, said Tasmanian fires in 2019 had been 'utterly devastating' killing 15 of the largest 25 trees known at the time. Fire could enter into existing hollows and cavities of very old trees and burn slowly for days, if not weeks, he said. Sometimes trees survived the fire, but later collapsed due to structural damage. Rachel Nolan, an associate professor at Western Sydney University and an expert in forestry and fire ecology who was not involved with the study, said in order to survive and reach those heights, mountain ash trees needed long fire-free intervals. While many forest eucalypts were resilient and resprouted new leaves in response to fire, mountain ash was a species that was often killed by bushfire, she said. But even other large eucalypts, thought to be more resilient, were showing high rates of large tree loss due to more frequent, intense fires. 'When you get more fire, you get more injury to trees,' she said,.'If you get enough of that the trees will just fall over.' Large, ancient trees provided valuable habitat and carbon storage, Nolan said, adding on a personal note 'there's something magical about these big, tall trees that's really inspiring and that we don't want to lose as a society'. Mifsud agreed. 'As a human, we want to be able to see the biggest, the best, the most wonderful things, and we're in danger of losing those things through climate change.' 'To be bereft of such wonderful things because we didn't look after them, or didn't have a plan to look after them, would be a tragedy.'
The Guardian
29-01-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Global ‘gigantism' hotspot: Tasmanian tree standing at almost 100m tallest in the country
Australian researchers have documented the tallest and most massive living trees in Tasmania, a 'global hot spot of gigantism in plants', including 18 examples over 90 metres. Most of the largest and tallest were Eucalyptus regnans, commonly known as mountain ash, including a tree known as 'Centurion', measuring 96 metres, according to new research in the Australian Journal of Botany. Located in the state's Huon Valley, Centurion was once the world's second tallest specimen, behind 'Hyperion', a coastal redwood in California measuring 115.6 metres. But that was before bushfire damage in 2019 cost the mountain ash almost 4 metres in height and several rungs on the global ladder. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email It is now ranked sixth among the tallest living species, behind the coastal redwood, a Himalayan cypress, sitka spruce, douglas fir and a tropical species from Malaysia, Shorea faguentiana. This made Australia, and especially Tasmania, a 'global hot spot of gigantism in plants', according to co-author Dr David Bowman, a professor of fire science at the University of Tasmania with a background in eucalypt ecology. Bowman said Tasmanian eucalypts were the 'kings and queens of the forest' that were achieving 'the physiological limit of what a giant tree can be'. They were able to reach their enormous size – in height and mass – due to Tasmania's 'cool nights, beautiful growing conditions in the day, an abundance of moisture', and had grown over hundreds of years without disturbance. Most of the 25 tallest trees in the state ranged in age between 320 and 500 years old, and according to the paper, they towered above the tallest known trees in other states. Victoria's tallest tree, a mountain ash dubbed 'Slinky Sloan', measured 93 metres. Western Australia followed with a 78 metre Karri tree, while Queensland's 'Big Bob', a flooded gum, measured 72.8 metres. In New South Wales, two different gum trees vied for top spot, both measuring 71 metres, while there were no known trees above 70 metres in South Australia, the Northern Territory or ACT. The paper also catalogued the largest examples of trees by trunk volume. The most massive – with a trunk measuring at 463m3, and a diameter of 6.14m – was 'easily the largest known tree in Australia'. These giants were an 'extraordinary expression of life', with significant cultural and environmental value, Bowman said. Yet many lacked official plans for their conservation, he said, and faced multiple threats due to their age, increasingly frequent and severe fires and climate change. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion The paper's co-author, Brett Mifsud, who has been gathering data on tall and giant trees in south-eastern Australia for close to 35 years, said Tasmanian fires in 2019 had been 'utterly devastating' killing 15 of the largest 25 trees known at the time. Fire could enter into existing hollows and cavities of very old trees and burn slowly for days, if not weeks, he said. Sometimes trees survived the fire, but later collapsed due to structural damage. Rachel Nolan, an associate professor at Western Sydney University and an expert in forestry and fire ecology who was not involved with the study, said in order to survive and reach those heights, mountain ash trees needed long fire-free intervals. While many forest eucalypts were resilient and resprouted new leaves in response to fire, mountain ash was a species that was often killed by bushfire, she said. But even other large eucalypts, thought to be more resilient, were showing high rates of large tree loss due to more frequent, intense fires. 'When you get more fire, you get more injury to trees,' she said,.'If you get enough of that the trees will just fall over.' Large, ancient trees provided valuable habitat and carbon storage, Nolan said, adding on a personal note 'there's something magical about these big, tall trees that's really inspiring and that we don't want to lose as a society'. Mifsud agreed. 'As a human, we want to be able to see the biggest, the best, the most wonderful things, and we're in danger of losing those things through climate change.' 'To be bereft of such wonderful things because we didn't look after them, or didn't have a plan to look after them, would be a tragedy.'
