Trees twitter current trim – European science network facilitates real-time reports

Forest on-line: European researchers enable trees to report real-time on how the changing climate is affecting them. Now vaporisation, water flows through the trees trunk and even the smallest growth increases of the tree are directly traceable on the internet.

It is new knowledge which the “Twittering Trees” deliver to the researchers of the European COST network “STReESS”. How do individual trees and consequently forests respond to increasing stress by heat and dryness? Events likely to increase in the course of the climate change.

This detailed diagnosis of growth increases as well as changes in the water household of the trees allows recognising states of stress quickly. Growth and mortality reaction can appear spontaneously, but also be belated by weeks or months or even years.

However, the mortality risk can be identified by the short- and long-term growth patterns – an information with early warning potential.

Continuous extension of the “Twittering Tree” network could open up the possibility for a European-wide early warning system making the dangers of extreme weather conditions immediately recognizable. The EU-project has made a first step in this direction.

The “Twittering Trees“ and many other exciting results of European-wide studies on the effect of extreme weather conditions on forests are presented in the afternoon of Thursday, 14th of April, 2016, in an interactive science-society event featuring the motto “shaping future forests” in Joachimsthal near Berlin.

Journalists are kindly invited. For transportation a shuttle bus from Berlin to Joachimsthal is planned. If required please contact the Thünen Institute of Forest Ecosystems in Eberswalde (E-mail: wo-streess2016@thuenen.de, Phone: +49 (0) 3334 3820-339).

A press conference takes place on Friday 15th of April, 2016, from 10 to 11am in the Bundespresseamt Berlin.

Please visit our web page for more information and registration: http://streess-cost.eu/ and follow us on twitter @COSTSTReESS and @TreeWatchNet

http://streess-cost.eu/ – STReESS website