Woodman, spare that tree!

http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/2014/01/woodman-spare-that-tree/

By Tim Radford

tree resized
It may seem unlikely, but an international team of researchers has found that most large trees keep absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide even in old age.

LONDON, 26 January – Giant trees could play a giant role in fixing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This counter-intuitive discovery – surely, young faster-growing trees would be more efficient at soaking up carbon? – emerges from a study of more than 403 species by a consortium of 38 scientists in 16 countries who report in Nature.

Nathan Stephenson of the US Geological Survey and his 37 colleagues between them studied data collected from more than 650,000 individual trees on six continents over a span of 80 years to show that the world’s oldest trees actually grow more quickly, and also accumulate carbon more rapidly than younger, smaller trees.