BOULDER CREEK — A recently published, multiyear study about the recovery of redwood trees in Big Basin Redwoods State Park after the CZU Lightning Complex fires shows that long-stored carbon reserves and ancient, dormant buds within redwood trees allow the plants to recover quickly after a catastrophic fire.
The study was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and Save the Redwoods League, with additional support from California State Parks and Sempervirens Fund, and was authored by a team of scientists and researchers from Northern Arizona University led by Drew Peltier, biologist and assistant professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, formerly with Northern Arizona University.
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“Some of the results of this study suggest many of the redwoods at Big Basin were actually well prepared for this fire event,” said Peltier in a statement. “Coast redwoods are extremely fire-adapted and perhaps unusual in that they resprout after disturbances like fire. We were amazed to discover how they actually do that physiologically.”
The 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fires spanned more than 135 square miles in the Santa Cruz Mountains and burned about 97% of Big Basin Redwoods State Parks, destroying nearly every structure and laying waste to the park’s flora and fauna.
According to the study, long-living organisms such as coast redwoods often develop “insurance strategies” to increase their resilience in times of resource shortages, stress or traumatic events such as pest outbreaks and wildfires. After a fire, burned redwoods recover by resprouting from roots, trunk and branches, which are supported by reserves of carbon, consisting primarily of sugars and starch, within the tree that can be years and even decades old.
The research team from Northern Arizona University collected samples of small redwood tree sprouts at Big Basin…
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