Planting for the Future: The Urban Trees of Tomorrow

In an article for Grist and republished in Wired, Laura Hautala highlights a little-discussed crisis facing urban trees as climate change shifts the balance of local ecosystems. “The world is warming too quickly for arboreal adaptation, said Manuel Esperon-Rodriguez, an ecologist at Western Sydney University who researches the impact of climate change on trees. That’s especially true of native trees.”

Consequently, maintaining urban tree canopies means planting for the future — and considering non-native options while avoiding major impacts on local plant and animal species. “To find solutions, researchers are studying which trees could do better than those currently struggling in rapidly warming cities, with an eye toward species that have already adapted to drier regions hundreds or even thousands of miles away.”

Urban arborists must carefully balance the environmental and cultural reasons to retain native trees with the need to plant more resilient species that will thrive into the future. “Done right, adding some variety to cities dominated by one kind of tree could reduce the problems caused by waves of pests or disease. A patchwork of species could create a buffer against tree-to-tree infection among the same species.”