In a forest in southern Chile, a giant Patagonian cypress, on the way to being certified as the oldest tree on the planet, would contain valuable information for science in terms of adaptation to climate change.
This Fitzroya cupressoides 28 meters high and four in diameter, baptized “Great Abuelo” (great-grandfather), would be some 5,000 years old. It would thus be older than the currently recognized dean, the “Methuselah”, a 4,850-year-old Bristlecone pine, preserved in a secret location in the United States.
“It is a survivor. No other tree has had the opportunity to live so long”, assures the specimen Antonio Lara, researcher at the Austral University of Chile and the Chilean Center for Climate and Resilience Sciences , who is part of the team responsible for studying the age of the tree.
At the edge of the ravine where it is located, in the region of Los Rios, 800 km south of Santiago, it escaped the fires and overexploitation of this endemic species from the south of the American continent, whose wood, extremely resistant, has been used for centuries in the construction of houses and boats.
Even before its entry into the Guinness World Records, tourists walk for an hour through a forest of younger larch trees (300 to 400 years old) to take a selfie next to the tree with its thick, sinuous trunk covered in mosses and lichens.
Its growing notoriety has pushed the National Office of Forests to increase the number of forest guards and limit visits, only on prior registration.
The “Gran Abuelo” was discovered in 1972 by a ranger, Anibal Henriquez, who “didn’t want people and tourists to know (where it was), because he knew it was very valuable”, explains his daughter Nancy Henriquez, herself a forest ranger.
Anibal’s grandson, Jonathan Barichivich, grew up playing among these Patagonian cypresses and is now one of the scientists studying the species at the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences, in Paris.
In 2020, as part of his research on climate change, he, together with Antonio Lara, extracted a sample from the tree using the longest manual drill in existence. But they could not reach its center.
This sample has been formally estimated at 2,400 years old and, thanks to a predictive model, “80% of the possible trajectories indicate that the tree would be 5,000 years old”, explains Mr. Barichivich, who hopes to publish his work soon.
The study has sparked excitement in the scientific world, as dendrochronology — the study of the age of trees from the rings on their trunks — has its limits when it comes to measuring older specimens , as many have rotten pits.
“It’s not just its age, there are many other reasons that give this tree value and meaning and justify the need to protect it,” says Lara.
Witness to the last 5,000 years, it is considered a formidable “time capsule” that stores information about the past and how these trees have managed to adapt to climate change and their environment.
Rare are the trees so old. Most are less than 1,000 years old and very few have lived more than 2-3,000 years.
“They’re like an open book,” says Carmen Gloria Rodriguez, research assistant in the Dendrochronology and Global Change Laboratory at Southern University.
They show in particular dry years (with narrower rings) and rainy years (wider) and can give indications of fires and earthquakes.
“They are symbols of resilience and adaptation. If these trees disappear, an important key to how life adapts to changes in the planet disappears with them,” says Barichivich.
22/04/2023 04:40:03 – Valdivia (Chili) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
