Tree Height Limitations

Tree Height Limitations

== 2 of 11 ==
Date: Tues, Aug 12 2008 11:38 am
From: "Edward Forrest Frank"

Bob,

Thanks for the Link. I found the other links there interesting also:

a.. World's First Tree Reconstructed http://www.livescience.com/environment/070418_first_tree.html
a.. Tree-Climbing Scientist Makes Surprising Discovery
http://www.livescience.com/environment/070817_bts_nadkarni.html
a.. 3-D Forest Canopy http://www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_070516.html

Ed Frank

== 3 of 11 ==
Date: Tues, Aug 12 2008 1:22 pm
From: dbhguru@comcast.net

James, Ed, et al:

The Mineral Tree was a Washington Doug-fir that blew over in 1930. It was measured in two sections, the one standing and a broken piece on the ground. The two pieces added to 393 feet. BVP reports on this tree in at least two of his publications, and so far as I am aware, Bob finds the measurement credible.
The article implies that 326 feet is the limit for Doug-fir. if that is the conclusion of the researchers, they may need to study more trees.

Bob

== 4 of 11 ==
Date: Tues, Aug 12 2008 1:31 pm
From: "Edward Forrest Frank"

Bob,

I know I have heard the suggestion that some of these very tall trees in cloud and rain forests may absorb water from the top during rain and fog to augment the water being drawn from the soil... I don't remember the source, so as to its credibility...

The conclusions of any research effort needs to considered carefully. There are numerous publications that appear in publications with differing results and conclusions, even with the monitoring of peer review.

Ed Frank

== 5 of 11 ==
Date: Tues, Aug 12 2008 1:37 pm
From: ForestRuss@aol.com

Ed:

Isn't the coastal fog what allows the redwoods to grow so tall? Somewhere I
read that for really tall trees the energy needed to lift water from the
roots can be significant and for extremely tall trees trapping usable moisture
from the air in moss and lichens would almost define symbiosis.

Russ

== 6 of 11 ==
Date: Tues, Aug 12 2008 1:43 pm
From: DON BERTOLETTE

So James, it seems like Goretex and very tall trees have something in common, ie, differetially permeable membranes capable of separating air and water molecules...
-DonRB

== 7 of 11 ==
Date: Tues, Aug 12 2008 1:48 pm
From: DON BERTOLETTE

Bob/Frank-
I would never impune BVP's credibility, but like Ed, I cannot throw off all skepticism, ie, that a piece of Douglas Fir might remain sufficiently intact (read, 'not rot') in the highly humid temperate rainforest environment, over a period of almost 80 years.
But I do like the idea of an almost 400 foot tall doug fir!
-DonRB

== 8 of 11 ==
Date: Tues, Aug 12 2008 1:56 pm
From: DON BERTOLETTE

Russ-
It can be truly said that Redwoods have the ability to capture moisture from the coastal fogs that abound there. But it's not through a reverse transpiration process, it's more mechanical...as the foliage gets saturated, it drips down from on high to lower saturated branches, which drip down onto....eventually the ground, where root systems do the actual "capture".

Now, could it be said that the evaporation of moisture from the foliage might provide cooling, thus diminishing the need for water up top? You bet...the phrase "diffuse water vapor pressure deficit" just came to mind (amazing, those gin and tonics have not yet dislocated all my memory traces from the 60's/70's). Evaporative cooling would diminish the deficit...
-Don

== 9 of 11 ==
Date: Tues, Aug 12 2008 2:15 pm
From: "Edward Forrest Frank"

Don,

When you start slinging around phrases like: ""diffuse water vapor pressure deficit" I think perhaps the gin and tonics are having an effect...

Ed

== 10 of 11 ==
Date: Tues, Aug 12 2008 2:55 pm
From: "Will Blozan"

Dr. Steven Sillett and colleagues have a great paper out on the subject. I
have it in pdf- maybe Ed can post it for download.

Will F. Blozan
President, Eastern Native Tree Society
President, Appalachian Arborists, Inc.

== 2 of 11 ==
Date: Wed, Aug 13 2008 6:27 am
From: doncbragg@netscape.net

ENTS--

I saw a poster by a couple grad students at the recent ESA meeting that use physiological research (probably akin to what was done with this work) to state the limit for eastern white pine in the "Lost Forty" stand in northern Minnesota (I reported on this stand a couple years ago) was probably "about 40 m (~131 ft).? This is roughly what I remember getting for the taller pines, although I wouldn't state it as an absolute limit.? However, we know that eastern white pine exceeds 150+ feet in Wisconsin and Michigan, and reaches 200 ft in the southern Appalachians, so their work isn't definitive for the species...

My thought is that this technique may work for locations or perhaps even regions, but shouldn't be considered universally true--at least not without making a broader sample...

Don

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Don C. Bragg, Ph.D.
Research Forester
USDA Forest Service
Southern Research Station
DonCBragg@netscape.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The opinions expressed in this message are my own, and not necessarily those of the Southern Research Station, the Forest Service, or the USDA.

== 3 of 11 ==
Date: Wed, Aug 13 2008 7:17 am
From: Kirk Johnson

Canopy researcher Nalini Nadkarni of The Evergreen State College in Olympia,
Washington has confirmed over the years instances both in Costa Rican
rainforests, and in Western Washington forests, of trees growing canopy root
systems from branches into the organic soil that accumulates on top of the
branches from the decay of epiphytes, leaf litter, and other debris.

Off the top of my head, I think what I read was that it was big leaf maple
or maybe red alder (or both) that she confirmed it with in Washington. I
don't know that it has been found to occur with Douglas-fir, or with coastal
redwoods down in California.

Kirk Johnson

== 4 of 11 ==
Date: Wed, Aug 13 2008 7:26 am
From: "Will Blozan"

Kirk,

I think redwoods can root into the aerial mats and circumvent the roots
below. This would GREATLY reduce the height of transport.

Will

Will F. Blozan
President, Eastern Native Tree Society
President, Appalachian Arborists, Inc.

== 5 of 11 ==
Date: Wed, Aug 13 2008 7:43 am
From: dbhguru@comcast.net

Don,

Yes, it was that mental imagery that drove us through the tangles of hobble bush and over slick rocks in 90% humidity.

Bob

== 6 of 11 ==
Date: Wed, Aug 13 2008 8:50 am
From: William Hascher

Rooting into the aerial mats I suppose then a redwood could eventually exceed that 425' height barrier, right?

Bill Hascher
Asheville, NC

== 7 of 11 ==
Date: Wed, Aug 13 2008 9:38 am
From: BVP

Greetings,

One thing to keep in mind with the height limit research is that the
theoretical heights are based on the current environment at the
location where the research is being conducted. The 2004 Nature paper
by Koch et al. concluded that 125 m for redwood - which is based on
research at Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Other areas, or the same
area under differing climate regimes of the distant past, would have a
different number.

Our research in the coastal rainforests led us to design a study to
quantify epiphytic biomass in the Queets River Valley in Olympic
National Park. I am still in the anaylsis phase of this research but
a couple of surprising results have already been made clear. We used
a complex, hierarchical subsampling regime to establish plots over an
entire chronosequence, chose a representative subset of trees to fully
branch-map, and then, from the complete inventory of branches, chose a
subset to sample the epiphytes on. Oven-dry mass of epiphytic
material alone reaches values on 10 metric tons by the end of the
first century, and continues to values of over 15 during the next few
hundred years. This has not been accurately recorded elsewhere on
earth. We also found 1 metric ton of dry mass within a single spruce
tree - the is also a world record.

On tree speciess with big moss mats, which is all of them in
environments like this, canopy roots are common. Especially on
maples, cottonwoods amd spruces. The root often emerges from a crotch
and the travels parallel to the branch, mining its resources. We
measured an 11 cm diameter root on a bigleaf maple branch, and an 8 cm
root in a giant spruce! In the cypress family (redwoods and cedars)
canopy roots are extremely common.

Even though trees can reduce water stress by recharging their stems
from leaves on foggy days in February, and use canopy roots to shorten
distances, these are still fairly minor assiatances. Ultimately,
there will be a hot day in late summer where these sources become
depleted, and the tree must rely on the full height. What happens?
The tree dies back. In redwoods, it is often just a few feet. Then a
new leader will develop to carry on the growth. During the last 14
years (where we have really been paying attention) dieback on tall
trees is fairly common. Some recent evidence has shown us that one of
our study trees has been over 360 feet for more than 200 years!

Cheers,
- BVP

== 8 of 11 ==
Date: Wed, Aug 13 2008 4:24 pm
From: DON BERTOLETTE

Will-
I believe Russ was referring to a single tree, and my response to him was focused on a single tree scenario.

Do I understand you to say that a tree growing on top of (or near top) a tree (arguably the same tree DNA), would constitute one tree's height?

I have seen redwood trees (some in Humboldt's School Forest!) that had multiple species (redwoods, doug firs) growing in the accumulations of tree debris caught by gnarled grizzled branches/false tops, and considered them a novelty, perhaps an anomaly, but hadn't yet considered them sufficiently a part of the primary tree, to count as primary tree height. Were you perhaps thinking of same species/same DNA scenarios?

By the way, kudos on your 'save the hemlocks' crusade, you're getting things done!
-Don

== 9 of 11 ==
Date: Wed, Aug 13 2008 4:47 pm
From: "Will Blozan"

Don,

No, same tree rooting into debris mats within it's own crown. Yellow birch
does that occasionally here in the s. Apps. I have wondered, actually, if an
epiphytic tree of the same species can graft to the host tree of the same
species. I suspect yellow birch may do that as large branches with moss mats
support little rows of birch seedlings. Some of these must graft to the host
especially if decay was present and young wound wood was nearby.

Will F. Blozan
President, Eastern Native Tree Society
President, Appalachian Arborists, Inc.

== 10 of 11 ==
Date: Wed, Aug 13 2008 7:54 pm
From: DON BERTOLETTE

Will-
Redwoods are capable of epicormic reproduction (similar to your yellow birch's "seedlings in a row"), although I am not familiar with any redwood's heights being increased this way...
-DonRB

== 11 of 11 ==
Date: Wed, Aug 13 2008 7:59 pm
From: ForestRuss@aol.com

Will:

I was thinking more in terms of individual trees and the discussion has been
very interesting...especially about some of the old growth trees and the
volume of moss and woody detritus that can accumulate in some of the oldest or
largest trees.

Russ

== 2 of 6 ==
Date: Thurs, Aug 14 2008 8:39 am
From: Mark Fulton

Hi Don,

Those were my students. What we showed was that water stress was at
least implicated in limiting the height of the white pines in the Lost
40. The mid-day xylem pressure potentials at the tops of the trees
were low enough to close stomates in almost any non-desert species,
and the 13C/12C ratios were comparable to those at the tops of the big
redwoods. (Photosynthesis is selective about different carbon
isotopes, and this selectivity is partly a function of drought
stress). The Lost 40 is pretty close to the NW range limit of white
pine, so I wouldn't be surprised if they could grow higher in the
interior of their range. Lee Frelich and I have been discussing
making measurements like this on big pines throughout the range - as
you point out, it's the obvious next thing to do. I'm also guessing
that the dynamics of cold-hardening vary through the crown of tall
trees, and that this may limit heights somewhat toward the north -
anybody care to join me for some midwinter climbs in northern
Minnesota?

Incidentally, if white pine CURRENTLY exceeds 150+ feet in Minnesota,
Lee and I want to know about it; according to his measurements, the
Lost 40 trees are currently the tallest. I wouldn't doubt for a
minute that there are historical records of taller ones, but we don't
know of any that are still standing. The only reason that the biggest
trees are up here in northern Minnesota is age; the Lost 40 and Itasca
State Park have some of the very few white pine stands that weren't
high graded in the early 20th century.

Cheers,
Mark Fulton
Dept. of Biology
Bemidji State University

== 3 of 6 ==
Date: Thurs, Aug 14 2008 9:25 am
From: "Edward Forrest Frank"

Mark,

Those results are interesting. Have fun in your mid-winter climbs. I personally would have some doubts about the historical tree height maximums that are reported in areas of Minnesota, simply because the reported height measurements of currently existing trees have often been so exaggerated, and that the reported height of historical trees plot so far outside the height curves of the current populations.

I am wondering if you have done any work with hemlocks in Minnesota? There is an existing population at Jay Cooke State park and the adjacent Hemlock Ravines Natural Area. MN DNR reports hemlocks in five locations, but generally just a single of a couple trees at most localities. Also there is a population of Hemlocks in Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis. It was unclear whether or not these are native grown or planted, likely the latter. I am curious because I really don't have much information about hemlock in this part of its range.

Ed Frank

== 4 of 6 ==
Date: Thurs, Aug 14 2008 10:17 am
From: DON BERTOLETTE

Will-
Uhmmm, no, I did mean epicormic. I was trying to get at the issue of DNA. When you said "I think redwoods can root into the aerial mats and circumvent the roots below. This would GREATLY reduce the height of transport", were you saying that the 'host tree' could sprout roots into it's own debris/soil laden crown and extend the "host tree's" height?
That would be amazing, and would indeed circumvent diffusion pressure deficit issues!
-Don

== 5 of 6 ==
Date: Thurs, Aug 14 2008 10:40 am
From: "Will Blozan"

Don,

Yes, the host tree can root into and exploit the aerial soil mats. But as
BVP stated, this may not help too much.

Will F. Blozan
President, Eastern Native Tree Society
President, Appalachian Arborists, Inc.

== 6 of 6 ==
Date: Thurs, Aug 14 2008 4:36 pm
From: dbhguru@comcast.net

Ed,

I would second your comments. If there is one thing we in ENTS have learned is that historically quoted heights are unreliable.

Bob

==============================================================================
TOPIC: Tree Height limitations
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/939608357fcc224f?hl=en
==============================================================================

== 1 of 2 ==
Date: Fri, Aug 15 2008 7:01 am
From: doncbragg@netscape.net

Mark--

I hope you didn't think I was being critical of your students--I thought they did a fine job of presenting their material, and their conclusions are are a logical outcome of the physiology work.? My commentary was more directed towards the Doug-fir work referenced in this article, which implied a maximum possible height of 105-110 m for Doug-fir as a species, which isn't entirely compatable with known field measurements.? My thoughts were the physiological factors that constrain tree height in one portion of the species range (like the white pine in northern Minnesota) are not the same as those that may affect it elsewhere, probably as a result of other trade-offs necessary to survive the specific suite of environmental conditions (e.g., the extreme cold of northern Minnesota and Canada).? Disturbance history of these trees also likely plays a key role--here in southern Arkansas, we don't tend to get the devastating large-scale windstorms of the northern Lake States, but we have frequent ice storms that damage pine tops and probably help constrain maximum pine heights in this region (at least when compared to places like the Carolinas).

I don't know specifically of any white pines 150+ ft tall in Minnesota.? I have measured some pines on the Pike Bay Experimental Forest on the Chippewa NF about an hour west of Grand Rapids (actually, pretty close to you in?Bemidji)?that were about 125 years old and 120+ feet tall.? This pine stand is growing on a decent northern hardwood site, and may have the potential to grow pretty tall for that region under dense stand conditions--the ones I measured were in a thinning study, and had been thinned repeatedly for some time.? If you have a chance and haven't been to this site, I'd advise stopping in and giving it a look-over.? The Pike Bay EF is operated by the USFS Northern Research Station unit in Grand Rapids run by Brian Palik...

Don

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Don C. Bragg, Ph.D.
Research Forester
USDA Forest Service
Southern Research Station
DonCBragg@netscape.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The opinions expressed in this message are my own, and not necessarily those of the Southern Research Station, the Forest Service, or the USDA.

== 2 of 2 ==
Date: Fri, Aug 15 2008 9:25 am
From: Mark Fulton

Don,

Nope, didn't take what you said as critical - happy to have the
interest. I've been thinking a lot about tree height for a couple of
years, and I agree that there are probably a range of things that
constrain heights in different parts of different ranges. The
hydrological limitations themselves are far from absolute; trees have
any number of ways of circumventing them, but all those ways have
costs and risks, and the cost functions are likely to vary in
complicated ways from place to place.

Many thanks for the tip about the Pike Bay plots; that's only about
20-25 minutes drive from where I'm sitting at the moment. For a
winter study it'd be handy to have some really tall ones closer than
the Lost 40 (80 minutes away on little back roads). I'll ask Brian
about it.

Cheers,
Mark Fulton

Home