‘World’s oldest tree’ found in Sweden - April 21, 2008
A Swedish university last week announced the discovery of the ‘world’s oldest living tree’, a 9,550 year old spruce. This is far older than previous record holders, says Umeaa University, which were North American pines dated to around 4,500 years ago.
Researchers found wood from four generations of spruces in the Dalarna province and dated these to 375, 5,660, 9,000 and 9,550 years old. These remains have the same genetic makeup as the trees above them, says the university (press release, news coverage).
However the press release notes that “Since spruce trees can multiply with root penetrating braches, they can produce exact copies, or clones. ... Although summers have been colder over the past 10,000 years, these trees have survived harsh weather conditions due to their ability to push out another trunk as the other one died.”
This makes me wonder if there isn’t a classification argument here, and whether this really counts as the world’s oldest tree.
The 4,500-odd year old pines from America are actual, individual trees that are that old (research paper, wikipedia entry). They can be dated by the old-fashioned ‘counting the rings’ method, either by taking a core or just by chopping them down.
However, from the press release it sounds like this Swedish spruce tree is a hardy root system pushing up cloned trees. This would make it rather similar to the clonal species of tree that are already known, and date back far further.
In the US one clonal quaking aspen tree could have been around for 80,000 years. Researcher Jeff Mitton notes, “Most biologists agree that clones of aspen could be 10,000 years old, and some biologists speculate about ages in excess of a million years. But this is all conjecture, the ramets [clones] and roots continually wither and are replaced by new growth, so no piece of wood reveals the full age of a clone.”
This isn’t to say a 9,550 year old tree isn’t impressive, but set against the other contenders it isn’t quite the oldest shrub in the world.
Image: Leif Kullman
Comments
You write "The 4,500-odd year old pines from America are actual, individual trees that are that old.. They can be dated by the old-fashioned 'counting the rings' method, either by taking a core or just by chopping them down."
How many bristle cone pines have been "chopped down" just to establish - "oh well that used to be the oldest living tree (thing) in the world"? - (till of course we chop down the next suspected oldest living thing to establish its age. Eventually the world will be a slaughterhouse, but we may have established what was the oldest tree).
Establishing the age of a tree isnt that easy. Even by chopping it down and counting its rings apparently you can be off by a few thousand years. See here http://www.conifers.org/topics/oldest.htm
Then you write : "This makes me wonder if there isn’t a classification argument here, and whether this really counts as the world’s oldest tree."
How do you establish that a creature is the same living creature as it ages? In a sense I am not the same creature I was when I was a child. Most of my cells have been replaced many times over. I would answer that question for myself by saying that at least some of my brain cells may be the same - but most of all, I retain the memories of my life. If I lost my memory then in some sense I wouldnt be the same person.
But then again how would an organism that that doesnt have a brain be classified as the same organism?
Posted by: Richard | April 21, 2008 09:07 PM
These are all news about remains of trees that date back 4000 or 9500 years...but there is a living tree in central Iran that dates back approx. 4000 years; which is in the UN's heritage list.
Posted by: Mosi Khali | April 28, 2008 12:30 AM