{"id":215677,"date":"2025-06-10T01:04:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T06:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/rings-of-time-unearthing-climate-secrets-from-ancient-trees"},"modified":"2025-06-10T01:04:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T06:04:17","slug":"rings-of-time-unearthing-climate-secrets-from-ancient-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/rings-of-time-unearthing-climate-secrets-from-ancient-trees","title":{"rendered":"Rings of time: Unearthing climate secrets from ancient trees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/rings-of-time-unearthing-climate-secrets-from-ancient-trees2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Deep in the swamps of the American Southeast stands a quiet giant: the bald cypress (Taxodium distichum). These majestic trees, with their knobby \u201cknees\u201d and towering trunks, are more than just swamp dwellers\u2014they\u2019re some of the oldest living organisms in Eastern North America. Some have been around for more than 2,500 years, quietly thriving in nutrient-poor, flooded forests where most other trees would wither.<\/p>\n<p>But life isn\u2019t easy for these ancient <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/trees\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">trees<\/a>. They\u2019re under siege from a variety of threats: rising seas, insect infestations, wildfires and increasingly erratic weather patterns. Unlike most animals, trees generally don\u2019t die of old age\u2014they succumb to the stresses around them.<\/p>\n<p>A study by Florida Atlantic University, in collaboration with Lynn University, the University of Georgia, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, and the Georgia Museum of Natural History, reveals how dramatic shifts in climate can have long-lasting effects on even the toughest, most iconic trees\u2014and offers a glimpse into the powerful forces that shape our natural world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Deep in the swamps of the American Southeast stands a quiet giant: the bald cypress (Taxodium distichum). These majestic trees, with their knobby \u201cknees\u201d and towering trunks, are more than just swamp dwellers\u2014they\u2019re some of the oldest living organisms in Eastern North America. Some have been around for more than 2,500 years, quietly thriving in [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,493,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-215677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biological","category-climatology","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}