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

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Urban trees grow more quickly but die faster than rural trees, resulting in a net loss of street-tree carbon storage over time, according to a study published May 8 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Ian Smith of Boston University, US and colleagues. Many greening initiatives include goals to increase urban canopy cover through tree planting, but our understanding of street-tree ecosystem dynamics is limited, and our understanding of vegetation structure and function based on intact, rural forests may not apply well to urban ecosystems. Despite the enhanced growth of urban trees, high mortality losses result in a net loss of street-tree carbon storage over time: mean mortality rates are more than double those of rural forests.

Source: phys.org