Seedling by seedling, Joshua trees will rise again in fire-scorched desert

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Joe Landeros plunged a shovel into the earth, poured water into the hole and carefully inserted a spiky green seedling.

Around him were icons of the California desert, felled by an enormous fire. Some of the Joshua trees were still standing but singed black. Some lay prone, their severed trunks like gaping wounds. Others had been reduced to piles of ash.

Two decades from now, if all goes well, the tiny bit of greenery will be a full-fledged Joshua tree, along with more than 1,500 that Landeros and other volunteers are planting.

"Well, I'm a geologist. Geologically speaking, that's no time at all," said Landeros, 28, of Long Beach, who planned to spend a week on the project.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/seedling-by-seedling-joshua-trees-will-rise-again-in-fire-scorched-desert/ar-AARQ9CQ

[OnlinePoker]

1. I'm wondering where the seed stock came from for these seedlings

If the seeds are only from a few source trees, a lack of genetic diversity could mean these new plantings are a lot more susceptible to disease in the future if one should arise.

[NickB79]

2. The climate has already shifted too much for natural reproduction

In most of their native range. Replanting in these areas is largely futile. Better to start planting them further north where they stand a chance in 100 years.

https://www.climatecentral.org/news/global-warming-may-push-joshua-trees-out-of-namesake-national-park

“We’re not saying that 90 percent of them will die,” said Ken Cole, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Flagstaff and the paper’s lead author. “The established ones may persist for 150 years. We’re saying that within 90 percent of its current range, they will be unable to reproduce or unable to survive [long-term].”

Kirsten Ironside, a landscape ecologist at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, and the paper’s second author, says that as existing trees eventually die, they are very unlikely to be replaced. Although their average lifespans are thought to range from 100 to 200 years, individual adults may live up to three hundred years or more, while reaching heights of more than 50 feet.

“It’s already gotten too warm and dry for it to prosper at Joshua Tree National Park,” said Cole. “So, its natural range is moving a couple of hundred miles north, due to a combination of [higher] temperatures and [decreased] moisture.”