Topic description and stories

Illustration of Calamophyton trees

Earth’s earliest forest revealed in Somerset fossils

07 Mar 2024

The oldest fossilised forest known on Earth – dating from 390 million years ago – has been found in the high sandstone cliffs along the Devon and...

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Pile of yew trunks at the edge of an agricultural field

The Fens of eastern England once held vast woodlands

24 Nov 2023

The Fens of eastern England, a low-lying, extremely flat landscape dominated by agricultural fields, was once a vast woodland filled with huge yew...

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Woodland

Experts predict ‘catastrophic ecosystem collapse’ of UK forests within the next 50 years if action not taken

08 Nov 2023

Other threats to UK forests include competition with society for water, viral diseases, and extreme weather affecting forest management.

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Monitoring particle air pollution either side of the tredge installed at St Ambrose primary school, Manchester.

Roadside hedges can reduce harmful ultrafine particle pollution around schools

13 Sep 2023

A new study led by Cambridge University confirms that planting hedges between roadsides and school playgrounds can dramatically reduce children’s...

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Treetops seen from a low angle

Phone-based measurements provide fast, accurate information about the health of forests

07 Mar 2023

Researchers have developed an algorithm that uses computer vision techniques to accurately measure trees almost five times faster than traditional...

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Experiment evaluates the effect of human decisions on climate reconstructions

07 Jun 2021

The first double-blind experiment analysing the role of human decision-making in climate reconstructions has found that it can lead to substantially...

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Driftwood in Siberia

The testimony of trees: how volcanic eruptions shaped 2000 years of world history

28 Sep 2020

Researchers have shown that over the past two thousand years, volcanoes have played a larger role in natural temperature variability than previously...

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Tree rings show scale of Arctic pollution is worse than previously thought

25 Sep 2020

The largest-ever study of tree rings from Norilsk in the Russian Arctic has shown that the direct and indirect effects of industrial pollution in the...

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Subfossil trees preserved in Iceland

Silent witnesses: how an ice age was written in the trees

27 Feb 2018

What connects a series of volcanic eruptions and severe summer cooling with a century of pandemics, human migration and the rise and fall of...

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Tree rings pinpoint eruption of Icelandic volcano to half a century before human settlement

29 Jun 2017

An international group of researchers has dated a large volcanic eruption in Iceland to within a few months. The eruption, which is the oldest...

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California’s sudden oak death epidemic now ‘unstoppable’ and new epidemics must be managed earlier

02 May 2016

New research shows the sudden oak death epidemic in California cannot now be stopped, but that its tremendous ecological and economic impacts could...

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Experts advocate for stronger measures to protect trees and other plants from pests and pathogens

20 May 2013

Ash dieback, caused by the Chalara fungus, prompts re-evaluation of current protocols to protect UK trees and other plants; taskforce recommends...

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