Essay

Trees Growing in the Greenhouse Effect

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People who study the Greenhouse Effect know that there is more at stake than just global warming. Caused primarily by the smoke of burning fossil fuels, the Greenhouse Effect is a direct result of higher levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Carbon dioxide in the air is used by all land plants for photosynthesis to make food. What happens when plants get overfed?

For many a tree, the first response to the increase of carbon dioxide levels in the air is an increase in photosynthesis. More carbon dioxide, CO₂, in the air means more sugar can be made by photosynthesis. Making more sugar pushes the tree into a growth spurt. Trunks and branches grow taller, longer, and thicker; new branches and leaves form; and roots send out more long, thin root strands covered with root hairs. One way to refer to such growth is to say that there was “an increase in biomass.” Research shows that when trees are grown in an area of greater than normal amounts of CO₂, the trees show an increase in photosynthesis followed by an increase in biomass (Luo, et al, 2004).

When a tree grows it needs new roots to take up more mineral from the soil. After all, plant growth requires more minerals to make the new cells. But fast-growing trees can use up the important nutrients needed for making the new plant cells of the new plant parts. Will the ecosystem be able to replace these minerals quickly enough to keep up with the growing trees? Will the photosynthesis slow down to keep pace with the mineral supply even if the CO₂ level in the air is higher than normal? What if the CO₂ levels begin to change from year to year, rising and falling, rising slightly, rising greatly, rising slowly, rising rapidly? Will the ecosystem be able to adjust? Will the trees remain healthy? Will the trees become stressed, spindly, disease-prone? Will ecosystem equilibrium be reestablished, its balance restored? These are questions that concern scientists today (Luo, et al, 2004).

Nitrogen is probably the most important of the minerals that plants take from the soil to live and grow. Will a fast-growing tree use up the soil’s supply of nitrates? Nitrates are the types of chemicals that contain nitrogen in a form that a plant can use. The Nitrogen Cycle shows that nitrogen is constantly being replaced in the soil as nitrates, but can this recycling occur fast enough to keep up with the demands of faster growing trees? (Luo, et al, 2004)

Think about the need for fertilizer in farming, flower gardening, and even in lawn care. Fertilizer is used to replace the nitrogen, phosphorus and other minerals that these quickly growing plants have removed from the soil. The assumption is that gardens, farms and lawns use these minerals more rapidly than natural recycling can replace them in the soil. The natural nitrogen replacement processes just cannot keep up. So we fertilize our gardens and lawns.

Some foresters worry about trees growing too fast. Will a forest be able to recycle its nitrogen and other minerals quickly enough to keep up with the increasing growth rate of trees? After all, how can we fertilize an entire forest? What will the new ecosystem equilibrium be like?

Researchers say that rapid growth of trees in a healthy forest over a decade or so will not damage the ecosystem. Unfortunately, there is not enough information to know what will happen when trees continue to grow faster over many decades of increasing growth rate (Luo, et al, 2004).

Meanwhile, as more fossil fuels are burned than ever before, more CO₂ is dumped into the air than ever before. The trees will respond with more photosynthesis and fresh growth more quickly than ever before-- until some kind of balance in the forest is reached. Will the new ecosystem equilibrium be benefit the trees, or harmful? Will man’s economy be affected? Will man’s culture be forced to change somehow? Can man guide the changes in a direction acceptable to the diverse political, social and economic groups of society? If there will be damage, can man stop the damage in time?

People that are concerned about the Greenhouse Effect have more questions than answers. It is just too early to tell what will really happen. The good news is that by taking more carbon dioxide out of the air, rapidly growing trees might slow Global Warming just a bit, for awhile, anyway.

Reference

Luo, Y., et al. 2004. Progressive nitrogen limitation of ecosystem responses to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide. BioScience 54: 731-739.

Published on shvoong.comAug 9, 2005 as science essay.

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