As climate change brings an increase in the frequency and severity of droughts, forest dieback is a key cause for concern: forests act as reservoirs of biodiversity and also allow vast amounts of carbon to be stored, reducing the so-called greenhouse effect. Oak trees, iconic veterans of European and American forests, have previously been thought to be highly vulnerable to drought. Now, thanks to a novel non-invasive optical technique, scientists from INRAE and the University of Bordeaux in France, with their colleagues from University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University have studied a range of oak species in North America to find out more about their resistance to drought. The results, published on 1st March in PNAS, show an evolutionary increase in the drought resistance of oak species which has enabled them to colonize more arid climatic zones and to develop what are, for now, relatively comfortable safety margins to cope with climate change.
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Source: Phys.org