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Old trees may absorb more carbon

Old trees’ capacity to absorb carbon has been underestimated scientists say. Source: The Australian

An international study of more than 650,000 trees from over 400 species has found that that the world’s largest trees grow more quickly than younger, smaller trees, and accumulate carbon more rapidly.

“A single big tree can add the same amount of carbon to the forest within a year as is contained in an entire mid-sized tree,” the researchers reported in the journal Nature.

The 38-strong team that includes two Australians said its findings indicate that large trees play a “disproportionately important role” in the impacts of forests on the global climate.

This has implications for climate modelling. Old trees have been considered less effective carbon sinks than young ones partly because of research findings that leaves in old forests sequester less carbon than leaves in new forests.

But the team found that the increasing number of leaves in old trees more than compensated for each leaf’s declining “productivity” in carbon storage.