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Conifer trees can prosper half a world away from their usual home

Nature作者：Steven A. Kannenberg2026年9月23日正文已收录本站
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Northern Hemisphere trees planted in the Southern Hemisphere can thrive, displaying increased stem growth and physiological signals linked to reduced stress.

By

  1. Steven A. Kannenberg

    1. Steven A. Kannenberg is in the Department of Biology, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506, USA.

Planting trees is often presented as a straightforward way to draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but whether a planted forest remains a carbon sink depends on how well trees adapt to and endure in their home. Writing in Nature, Fajardo et al.1 report a striking result: Northern Hemisphere conifers that are introduced to the Southern Hemisphere can grow substantially faster than those in their original habitat. These non-native trees also resist and recover from drought more effectively than do those in the Northern Hemisphere. This finding challenges the expectation that rapid growth should come at the cost of stress tolerance and complicates the debate over which types of forest and which species should be promoted for climate mitigation.

Nature 657, 884-885 (2026)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-02771-3

References

  1. Fajardo, A. et al. Nature 657, 697–702 (2026).

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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