WEBVTT - What's Killing Ancient Baobab Trees?

0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:07.040
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works, Hey, brain stuff,

0:00:07.080 --> 0:00:10.879
<v Speaker 1>Lauren vocal bomb. Here to the almost undeniable evidence that

0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:14.400
<v Speaker 1>climate change is real and inflicting massive damage on our planet,

0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.599
<v Speaker 1>we now add another damning bit of substantiation, the sudden

0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:23.440
<v Speaker 1>death of several majestic and ancient African baobab trees. The baobab,

0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:27.120
<v Speaker 1>with its massive, often hollowed out trunk, shiny fibrous bark,

0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:30.880
<v Speaker 1>and high, gnarly branches that resemble roots, is scattered throughout

0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:34.919
<v Speaker 1>African savannahs. It's an odd looking tree. One legend has

0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:36.600
<v Speaker 1>it that a god threw it out of paradise and

0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:39.240
<v Speaker 1>it landed upside down on Earth, where it continued to grow.

0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:44.000
<v Speaker 1>The baobabs, known colloquially as wooden elephants or upside down trees,

0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.279
<v Speaker 1>are used by many African peoples for a host of reasons.

0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:50.440
<v Speaker 1>Some people's in Tanzania and Kenya use pulp from the

0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.239
<v Speaker 1>wood to make beer. The trees bark can provide a

0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.760
<v Speaker 1>variety of uses, including rope, harness straps, mats, snares, and

0:00:56.800 --> 0:01:00.400
<v Speaker 1>fishing lines, cloth, musical instrument strings, tethers, bedsp ings, and

0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:04.400
<v Speaker 1>bow strings. In both Senegal and Ethiopia. The fibers are

0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:07.800
<v Speaker 1>woven into waterproof hats. They may also serve as drinking vessels,

0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:09.959
<v Speaker 1>and the fiber is the best for making the famous

0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:13.440
<v Speaker 1>Kiondo baskets of Kenya. It's a tree that can live,

0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:17.160
<v Speaker 1>by conservative estimates, to two thousand years old, but a

0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:20.960
<v Speaker 1>June study in the journal Nature Plants reveals some alarming

0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:25.320
<v Speaker 1>news about the species. Nine of thirteen oldest baobabs, five

0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:27.880
<v Speaker 1>of the six largest trees that researchers examined over the

0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:31.640
<v Speaker 1>past twelve years, have now died. The reasons for the

0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.319
<v Speaker 1>sudden die off are as yet unclear, but climate change

0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:38.720
<v Speaker 1>induced drought is the top suspect. Let me quote from

0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:41.640
<v Speaker 1>the study, the deaths of the majority of the oldest

0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:44.880
<v Speaker 1>and largest African baobabs over the past twelve years is

0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:48.400
<v Speaker 1>an event of an unprecedented magnitude. These deaths were not

0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:51.000
<v Speaker 1>caused by an epidemic, and there's also been a rapid

0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:54.640
<v Speaker 1>increase in the apparently natural deaths of many other mature baobabs.

0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:59.080
<v Speaker 1>We suspect that the demise of monumental baobabs may be associated,

0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:02.600
<v Speaker 1>at least in part with significant modifications of climate conditions

0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:07.400
<v Speaker 1>that affect Southern Africa, in particular, it's strange and unprecedented

0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:09.720
<v Speaker 1>that so many trees that live for so long would

0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.880
<v Speaker 1>succome at the same time. The studies authors point out

0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:15.359
<v Speaker 1>that more research is needed to find a definitive cause.

0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:18.959
<v Speaker 1>But as Erica Wise, the head of the Climate and

0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:22.080
<v Speaker 1>Tree Ring Environmental Science Research Group at the University of

0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:27.080
<v Speaker 1>North Carolina, told The Atlantic, when around of your one thousand,

0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.839
<v Speaker 1>five hundred to two thousand year old trees died within

0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.320
<v Speaker 1>twelve years, it is certainly not normal. It's difficult to

0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:37.399
<v Speaker 1>come up with a culprit other than climate change. The Baobab,

0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:39.919
<v Speaker 1>it should be pointed out, is not easy to kill either.

0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:43.120
<v Speaker 1>It's a legendary for its ability to withstand fire and

0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:46.520
<v Speaker 1>the stripping of its bark. Here's what the agro Forestry

0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:49.680
<v Speaker 1>Database has to say about it. The thick, fibrous bark

0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:52.919
<v Speaker 1>is remarkably fire resistant, and even if the interior is

0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:57.080
<v Speaker 1>completely burnt out, the tree continues to live. Regrowth after

0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:00.200
<v Speaker 1>fire results in a thickened, uneven integument that give the

0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:03.359
<v Speaker 1>tree its gnarled appearance, resembling an elephant skin, but that

0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:07.880
<v Speaker 1>serves as an added protection against fire. The trees grow

0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:10.760
<v Speaker 1>so big that they're hollowed. Interiors are often used for shelter,

0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:14.440
<v Speaker 1>water storage and local gatherings. Yet between two thousand five

0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:17.720
<v Speaker 1>and twenty seventeen, as researchers began to measure and record,

0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:21.440
<v Speaker 1>dozens of the biggest baio babs, sturdy trees started dying off.

0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:25.359
<v Speaker 1>The largest, the Platland tree, also known as the Sunland

0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:29.079
<v Speaker 1>Baiobab of Limpopo Province, South Africa, was about sixty two

0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:32.480
<v Speaker 1>feet that's nineteen meters high and in astonishing a hundred

0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:35.760
<v Speaker 1>and eleven feet that's thirty four meters around. In twenty

0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:39.400
<v Speaker 1>six and seventeen, it split four times and it's five

0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:43.160
<v Speaker 1>stems crumpled to the ground and died. When another big

0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:46.720
<v Speaker 1>baobab collapsed in sixteen, the researchers found that it contained

0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:50.040
<v Speaker 1>just forty nine water compared to seventy nine percent for

0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:54.800
<v Speaker 1>a healthy baiobab. Yen's gay Bour, a horticulturalist at the

0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:58.600
<v Speaker 1>Rhineval University of Applied Sciences, told The New York Times.

0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:01.920
<v Speaker 1>The new paper nice brings together information showing that the

0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:04.400
<v Speaker 1>death of the millennial bail Babs is likely due to

0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:14.000
<v Speaker 1>an unprecedented combination of temperature increase, and drought. Today's episode

0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:16.520
<v Speaker 1>was written by John Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang.

0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:19.239
<v Speaker 1>For more on this and lots of other environmental topics,

0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:33.120
<v Speaker 1>visit our home planet, how Stuff Works dot com.