Eighty-five years of big tree history available in one place for the first time

US National Champion Tree Program historical documents and registers date back to 1940

University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

The timeline of registers for the National Champion Tree Program dates back to 1940 and goes through the present day including species such as the National Champion Kentucky Yellowwood that is growing in New Hampshire. 

view more 

Credit: Photo courtesy National Champion Tree Program.

Whether strolling through the woods or taking a rest from outdoor labors, autumn is a time when people contemplate the value of our trees and forests. The curious can now also explore the historical documents of the nation’s biggest trees dating back to the 1940s online, in one place, for the first time. The National Champion Tree Program at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture has compiled historical records dating back to the program’s inception.

“We are thrilled to release this compilation of more than 80 years of big tree history,” says Jaq Payne, director of the National Champion Tree Program at the UT Institute of Agriculture School of Natural Resources. “These registers are a time capsule, showing us past monarchs of nature and how people have written about big trees in the past.” The registers are listed by year with some featuring different milestones such as the 50th anniversary in 1990 or the first online version to replace the print version in 2010, which was not well received by big tree fans. The records include notes about changes in the registers over time along with messages and letters.

“When this program started in the early 1940s, tree-lovers were voicing concerns about massive deforestation due to war efforts, and some early recognition of pests and diseases,” Payne adds. “Now, around 85 years later, our forests and trees continue to face threats of a different kind — an abundance of pests and pathogens, storms of increasing intensity and frequency, and pressures from thoughtless and ecologically unsound development.” Along with collecting data on big trees, the program works with communities, government agencies, universities and conservation groups on preserving them in urban and rural landscapes.

Payne hopes the compilation shows how big trees connect people to the past and the future. “Not only are they living witnesses to hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years of history, but when properly cared for, their lifespans can extend far beyond us into the lives of our grandchildren’s grandchildren,” Payne notes. “Our choices today determine what our landscape will look like in 100 years.”

The release of the historical documents comes as the program marks two years at the University of Tennessee after moving from American Forests in 2023. People can find the latest register from 2024 at the end of the historical registers’ timeline. If you know a potential tree for future registers, the program is still taking nominations through December 1.

The UTIA School of Natural Resources focuses on a mastery learning approach, emphasizing practical, hands-on experiences. The school’s faculty, staff and students advance the science and sustainable management of our natural resources through various programs of the UT Institute of Agriculture (UTIA).

UTIA is comprised of the Herbert College of Agriculture, UT College of Veterinary Medicine, UT AgResearch and UT Extension. Through its land-grant mission of research, teaching and extension, the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture touches lives and provides Real. Life. Solutions. to Tennesseans and beyond. utia.tennessee.edu.

 

---

Method of Research

Literature review

Archaeologists uncover 5,500-year-old ceremonial site in Jordan

A research team has uncovered a remarkable Early Bronze Age ritual landscape at Murayghat in Jordan. The discovery can shed new light on how ancient communities responded to social and environmental change.

University of Copenhagen

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Dolmen found at the Murayghat site in Jordan

view more 

Credit: Susanne Kerner, University of Copenhagen

How did ancient cultures respond to crises and the collapse of the established social order? The 5,000-year-old Early Bronze Age site of Murayghat in Jordan, which has been extensively excavated by archaeologists from the University of Copenhagen, may hold an answer.

Murayghat emerged after the decline of the so-called Chalcolithic culture (ca. 4500–3500 BCE), a period known for its domestic settlements, rich symbolic traditions, copper artifacts, and small cultic shrines.  

Researchers believe that climate shifts and social disruptions may have led to the collapse of the culture, and in response, Early Bronze Age groups began creating new forms of ritual expression:

“Instead of the large domestic settlements with smaller shrines established during the Chalcolithic, our excavations at Early Bronze Age Murayghat show clusters of dolmens (stone burial monuments), standing stones, and large megalithic structures that point to ritual gatherings and communal burials rather than living quarters,” says project leader and archaeologist Susanne Kerner from the University of Copenhagen.

Redefinition of territory and social roles

More than 95 dolmen remains have been documented by the archaeologists, and the central hilltop of the site contains stone-built enclosures and carved bedrock features that also suggest ceremonial use. 

These visible markers may have helped redefine identity, territory, and social roles in a time without strong central authority, Susanne Kerner points out:

“Murayghat gives us, we believe, fascinating new insights into how early societies coped with disruption by building monuments, redefining social roles, and creating new forms of community.”

Excavations at Murayghat have revealed Early Bronze Age pottery, large communal bowls, grinding stones, flint tools, animal horn cores, and a few copper objects — all pointing to ritual activity and possible feasting. The site’s layout and visibility also suggest it served as a meeting point for different groups in the region.

Susanne Kerner has recently published the article Dolmens, standing stones and ritual in Murayghat about the findings at Murayghat in the journal Levant.

Overview of the the Murayghat site in Jordan

Credit

Susanne Kerner, University of Copenhagen

---

Journal

Levant

DOI

10.1080/00758914.2025.2513829 

Article Title

Dolmens, standing stones and ritual in Murayghat

 

Research shows how Dust Bowl-type drought causes unprecedented productivity loss

Extreme, prolonged drought conditions in grasslands around the world would greatly limit the long-term health and productivity of these crucial ecosystems

Colorado State University

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

The Semi-arid Grassland Research Center in northern Colorado. One of the sites used for the International Drought Experiment. Credit: Colorado State University College of Natural Sciences

view more 

Credit: Colorado State University College of Natural Sciences

A global research effort led by Colorado State University shows that extreme, prolonged drought conditions in grasslands and shrublands would greatly limit the long-term health of crucial ecosystems that cover nearly half the planet. The findings are particularly relevant as climate change increases the possibility of more severe droughts in the future – potentially leading to a situation that echoes the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

The new research published in Science shows that losses in plant productivity – the creation of new organic matter through photosynthesis – were more than twice as high after four years of continued extreme drought when compared to losses from droughts of moderate intensity. The work shows that these grassland and shrubland ecosystems lose their ability to recover over time under prolonged dry conditions.

“We show that – when combined – extreme, multi-year droughts have even more profound effects than a single year of extreme drought or multi-year moderate droughts,” said CSU Biology Professor Melinda Smith, who led the study with Timothy Ohlert, a former CSU postdoctoral researcher.

“The Dust Bowl is a good example of this,” she continued. “Although it spanned nearly a decade it was only when there were consecutive extremely dry years that those effects, such as soil erosion and dust storms, occurred. Now with our changing climate, Dust Bowl-type droughts are expected to occur more frequently.”

Smith designed and led the International Drought Experiment with more than 170 researchers around the world. For the project, researchers built rainfall manipulation structures that reduced each rainfall event by a target amount over a four-year period in grassland and shrubland ecosystems across six continents. The CSU research team includes University Distinguished Professor Alan Knapp, Professor Eugene Kelly, Associate Professor Daniela Cusack and Research Associate Anping Chen. Former Ph.D. student Amanda Cordiero and Postdoctoral Researcher Lee Dietterich also contributed to the study.

By simulating 1-in-100-year extreme drought conditions, the team was able to study the long- and short-term effects on grasslands and shrublands, which store more than 30% of global carbon and support key industries, such as livestock production. Variations in precipitation, as well as soil and vegetation across continents, meant different sites experienced different combinations of moderate and extreme drought years – providing unique experimental conditions that informed this study.

Smith said the paper highlights the interaction between extremity and duration in drought conditions and that this interaction has rarely been systematically studied using experiments.

She added that the research suggests that the negative impacts on plant productivity are also likely to be much larger than previously expected under both extreme and prolonged drought conditions. 

Plant growth is a fundamental component of the global carbon cycle. That is because plant photosynthesis is the main way carbon dioxide enters ecosystems, where animals consume it and plants store it as biomass. Because grasslands and shrublands cover roughly 50% of the Earth’s surface, they play a large role in balancing and facilitating carbon uptake and sequestration globally. That means changes to these ecosystems caused by drought could have wide-ranging impacts, Knapp said.

“An additional strength of this research is that the scale of the experiment matches the extent of these important grassland and shrubland ecosystems,” Knapp said. “This allowed us to show how widespread and globally significant these extreme drought impacts can be.”

For more than a decade, Smith, Knapp and their colleagues have worked on similar research into grasslands at CSU. They often partner with agencies like the Department of Agriculture to develop a better understanding of the consequences of climate change to these ecosystems on topics such as species diversity. The International Drought Experiment is a key example of this work. The team recently published findings in PNAS from the same multi-site research network that quantified the impact of extreme short-term (one year) drought on grassland and shrubland ecosystems. Smith said the pair of papers now form an important foundation for further research into this topic.

“Because of the historic rarity of extreme droughts, researchers have struggled to estimate the actual consequences of these conditions in both the near and long-term,” she said. “This large, distributed research effort is a truly a team effort and provides a platform to quantify and further study how intensified drought impacts may play out.”

---

Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.ads8144 

Article Title

Drought intensity and duration interact to magnify losses in primary productivity

Article Publication Date

16-Oct-2025

Grassland research at CSU video [VIDEO] 

Colorado State University Department of Biology ecologists Melinda Smith, Alan Knapp and Kate Wilkins discuss why grasslands are important ecosystems, and how they will be impacted with climate change.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qD2rzn4vLc

The Semi-arid Grassland Research Center in northern Colorado is one of the sites used for the International Drought Experiment. 

Credit: Colorado State University College of Natural Sciences

Rainout shelters at the Purdue Wildlife Area, near West Lafayette, Indiana, reduced precipitation in a restored prairie as part of the International Drought Experiment

Credit  Credit Jeffrey Dukes

Experiment site Allmend in Switzerland. 

Credit: Andreas Stampfli, Bern University of Applied Sciences

An experiment test site in the cloud forests of the Kosñipata Valley, Peru

Credit  David Bartholomew