Eucalyptus in a warming world

Eucalypts are among the most heat-adapted trees on the planet, and they are still being pushed past their limits. These notes follow what is known about how the genus responds to hotter, drier and more fire-prone conditions, and what that means for the places where it grows.

I am not a scientist. I read the papers that I can find, walk through plantations and remnant bush when travel allows, and write down what seems solid. Where the evidence is thin, I try to say so.

Articles

• How eucalypts cope with heat and drought, and where coping endsLeaf angle, deep roots, and the canopy dieback that follows a bad summer.
• Fire, oil-rich leaves and a longer burning seasonWhy a genus built for fire is not necessarily built for the fires we now get.
• Plantations as carbon sinks: the case for and againstFast growth, thirsty roots, and what happens to the carbon at harvest.
• Koalas, leaf chemistry and higher CO₂A diet that was already marginal is getting harder to live on.