Redwood Drought Stress Spreading Rapidly In California; Trees Dropping Cones, Turning Brown

[hatrack]

California’s towering redwood trees are dying of thirst. “They require enormous amounts of water,” said Anthony Ambrose, a tree biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who has been studying redwoods and giant sequoias for nearly two decades. “For the big, old trees, they can use more than 2,000 liters of water per day during the summer.”

Water, however, is in increasingly short supply in the Golden State. All around drought-stricken California, coast redwoods appear to be suffering. They’re shedding leaves, turning brown, and dropping undersized cones. Some of the state’s younger trees, situated in parks and residential areas hundreds of miles away from their native forests, are even dying.

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Ambrose and his colleagues Wendy Baxter and Todd Dawson want to answer that question. Last year they started studying the trees at two sites near Santa Cruz, where the redwoods, Douglas firs, and California bay laurel trees all show signs of water stress.

Now they want to take that research to a whole new level to help them understand the long-term effects the drought could have on the redwood forests. Long-term water stress, they fear, could leave the trees susceptible to diseases or insects, make them grow more slowly, reduce their ability to establish seedlings, or even kill them. The trio has launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise the $24,000 necessary for the research.

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http://news.yahoo.com/drought-topple-california-towering-redwoods-171309164.html

[liberal N proud]

1. Has man done what thousands of years couldn't do?

Kill the redwoods?