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Where Did Trees Come From?

The Origin of Our Forresty Friends

Cole Frederick
Science Spectrum
Published in
6 min readJan 14, 2025

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Trees are one of the most iconic types of organisms on the planet. Forests are found all over the world, and many ecosystems feature trees as a keystone species. The materials provided by trees such as wood, acorns, fruits, and shade, have been essential for human innovation and invention. You would be hard-pressed to find a class of plants that have been more tied to our development throughout human history.

Trees are not only important to us. A single tree can house thousands of different species such as woodpeckers, owls, insects, squirrels, caterpillars, and countless types of bacteria. Additionally, forests serve as an essential reservoir of carbon dioxide. There is an estimated 861 gigatonnes of carbon stored in all of the world’s forests¹. That is equivalent to about 100 years of human fossil fuel emissions at the current rate.

Yet, we are losing our precious forests rapidly. Since 1700, we have gone from 52% global forest coverage to only 38%. Trees continue to be cut to make way for the ever-increasing demand for land used by farming and grazing. This is not a new trend, but it has been accelerating in recent…

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Science Spectrum
Science Spectrum

Published in Science Spectrum

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Cole Frederick
Cole Frederick

Written by Cole Frederick

Ph.D. Candidate in climate science | Editor of Science Spectrum

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