Scientists want to know: How to kill a tree?

According to many recent studies, slowly rising temperatures, carbon starvation and subsequent droughts are killing trees across Earth landscapes, reports The New York Times.

An excerpt: “Ecologists know how to grow trees, but we don’t know how to kill them realistically,” said Allen. “We don’t know the thresholds of tree mortality.”

The particular reasons a plant dies are difficult to isolate. A given tree may first encounter drought stress, then become prone to disease or pest infestation before finally dying. The link between recent tree die-offs and climate change is even more tenuous, except for one study in the western United States.

In 2009, a report by the U.S. Geological Survey in the journal Science revealed that trees were dying out at double the background rate than previously, and the researchers identified climate stress as the most likely contributor to the decline.

–Toshio Suzuki