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Urban trees 'live fast, die young' compared to those in rural forests

phys.org

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Re: Urban trees 'live fast, die young' compared to those in rural forests

#11

Post by criley2 »

neuronic wrote: post #4

I wonder if urban trees will adapt to city life - but I guess it depends on where the cities get their new trees. If it's not from the city's tree gene pool we will put forest trees into cities and they won't far any better 200 years from now.

The idea that we would use random natural selection for urban trees feels archaic. We don't use natural selection for our crops or livestock or much of anything any more.

Urban trees will almost assuredly, like all of the other lifeforms we grow and rely on, be altered through human selection (be it simple old techniques like cross breeding, or advanced techniques like genetic modification)

i.e. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_tree

Re: Urban trees 'live fast, die young' compared to those in rural forests

#12

Post by dsfyu404ed »

fathead_glacier wrote: post #6
neuronic wrote: post #4

I wonder if urban trees will adapt to city life - but I guess it depends on where the cities get their new trees. If it's not from the city's tree gene pool we will put forest trees into cities and they won't far any better 200 years from now.

I think it will also involve selecting seeds only from "better" performing trees from the city tree gene pool. This will then ensure that beneficial mutations / changes survive. An unfortunate requirement of evolution to force progress. In a way it will be survival of the fittest for trees. Unfortunately it might take considerable work from urban planners which I cannot see happening on a large scale any time soon. M…

>I think it will also involve selecting seeds only from "better" performing trees from the city tree gene pool. This will then ensure that beneficial mutations / changes survive. An unfortunate requirement of evolution to force progress.

>In a way it will be survival of the fittest for trees. Unfortunately it might take considerable work from urban planners which I cannot see happening on a large scale any time soon.

I greatly look forward to Cambridge trees that wake up at 10am toke it up 'til noon and complain about life being hard, New Bedford trees that pack heat, Boston trees that think they're the center of the universe and other environment specific adaptations.

Re: Urban trees 'live fast, die young' compared to those in rural forests

#13

Post by icebraining »

guilhas wrote: post #9

I think a bigger issue is healthy trees being cut in a lot of urban areas. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5801627/Great-tree-... Reference to UK, but I can see the same happening in Ireland and Portugal.

I think a lot of trees were cut down in Portugal due to allergy concerns, despite that being mostly a misconception of the causes, but I can't say I've noticed an actual reduction in the number.

Re: Urban trees 'live fast, die young' compared to those in rural forests

#17

Post by saltminer »

oftenwrong wrote: post #10
thrower123 wrote: post #3

Hard to expect anything different. The amount of salt that they get exposed to is horrifying, at least in places that experience cold temperatures and go nuts with the calcium chloride to melt off every speck of snow and ice.

There are some benefits for street trees that the article points out, including less competition for light, more CO2, more nitrogen deposition, a longer growing season, and the opportunity to tap water/sewer lines.

> the opportunity to tap water/sewer lines

Does this involve breaking pipes? How exactly is it beneficial?

Re: Urban trees 'live fast, die young' compared to those in rural forests

#18

Post by fredley »

saltminer wrote: post #17
oftenwrong wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some benefits for street trees that the article points out, including less competition for light, more CO2, more nitrogen deposition, a longer growing season, and the opportunity to tap water/sewer lines.

> the opportunity to tap water/sewer lines Does this involve breaking pipes? How exactly is it beneficial?

It's beneficial to the tree.

Re: Urban trees 'live fast, die young' compared to those in rural forests

#19

Post by debacle »

I'll repost a comment I made a few years ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14156934

> I know a few arborists. This is generally the cycle:

> 1. There is a tree problem.

> 2. Muni orders some sort of study after the problem has become unassailable.

> 3. Arborist performs a study, finds lack of naturalized species, lack of diversity, lack of appropriately spaced trees.

> 4. Muni throws their hands up in the air because money and keeps doing the wrong things.

Re: Urban trees 'live fast, die young' compared to those in rural forests

#20

Post by piker »

cicero wrote: post #14

That's the urban lifestyle in general, isn't it?

Nope.

> Life expectancy was inversely related to levels of rurality. In 2005-2009, those in large metropolitan areas had a life expectancy of 79.1 years, compared with 76.9 years in small urban towns and 76.7 years in rural areas. When stratified by gender, race, and income, life expectancy ranged from 67.7 years among poor black men in nonmetropolitan areas to 89.6 among poor Asian/Pacific Islander women in metropolitan areas. Rural-urban disparities widened over time. In 1969-1971, life expectancy was 0.4 years longer in metropolitan than in nonmetropolitan areas (70.9 vs 70.5 years). By 2005-2009, the life expectancy difference had increased to 2.0 years (78.8 vs 76.8 years). The rural poor and rural blacks currently experience survival probabilities that urban rich and urban whites enjoyed 4 decades earlier. Causes of death contributing most to the increasing rural-urban disparity and lower life expectancy in rural areas include heart disease, unintentional injuries, COPD, lung cancer, stroke, suicide, and diabetes.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24439358

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