Anyone interested in the importance and value of old trees, should find this interesting.
For years foresters have assumed that old trees have stopped growing and in many cases are decadent.
Good we have forest researchers to do this important research.
Most living things reach a certain age and then stop growing, but trees accelerate their growth as they get older and bigger, a global study has found.
The findings, reported by an international team of 38 researchers in the journal Nature, overturn the assumption that old trees are less productive. It could have important implications for the way that forests are managed to absorb carbon from the atmosphere.
“This finding contradicts the usual assumption that tree growth eventually declines as trees get older and bigger,” said Nate Stephenson, the study’s lead author and a forest ecologist with the US Geological Survey (USGS). “It also means that big, old trees are better at absorbing carbon from the atmosphere than has been commonly assumed.”