Trees, an important part of our ecosystem. Starting as saplings they grow into enormous giants filled with leaves. These magnificent giants provide shade for every living creature in the ecosystem. Did you know trees are among the longest living organisms on the planet? Trees can take several years to grow; one tree can take 3–8 years to grow to their adult size. Once fully grown they provide so much for our ecosystem: food, oxygen, climate, and air filtration.
A single tree can filter 48lbs of carbon dioxide a year and produce twice as much oxygen, approximately 260lbs. Now that 260lbs depends on the size of the tree, a hundred-foot tree can produce 6,000lbs (about 2721.55 kg) of oxygen a year. That’s just one large redwood tree!
Pollution is a major issue these days according to climatologists. Trees are a number one way to reduce the pollution levels. Not only do they absorb the pollution but also providing much needed shade. The shade from trees help with the suns harmful rays thus cooling the Earth. Not only cooling but reducing the pollution concentration. This can also reduce the amount of energy houses utilize, thus reducing energy costs and supply.
Trees can help absorb pollutants in the air with their leaves and the bark. The pores on the leaves take in polluting gases which get absorbed into the tiny pores called stomata. The leaves filter and trap the gases inside reducing the overall amount in the air. That’s not all, the leaves aren’t the only air filtration, the bark helps filter as well. The fat inside the bark helps soak up greasy pollutants. Trees are important to our air quality in all sorts of ways, that’s why we should plant more of them.
Trees are part of our food chain to all our herbivore friends that need to eat. Such animals that need this type of food are giraffes, elephants, bees, ants, and caterpillars etc. Without this food source most of these creatures would die off or not have a significant source of food. Trees do help our bees with the flowers that some trees bear. Bees were once part of an extinction scare we don’t need to take a food source from them. Cherry blossoms is an excellent example that has flowers, plant one of these. Plus they smell wonderful!
Trees help our climate as they provide shade that keeps the sun’s rays from burning us all alive. When trees grow all around each other they create forests, one such forest is giving us lots of climate control, the rain forest (Amazon). Along with climate the Amazon produces twenty percent of the Earth’s oxygen. The Amazon helps control our climate by shading a large part of the world, cooling down most of the land. By shading this large amount of land, the Amazon helps keep the planet cool. Due to the enormous nature of the Amazon the trees help filter carbon dioxide emissions, greenhouse gases, and slows the effects of global warming.
There are so many types of trees: Oak, Cherry, Birch, Fir, and Redwood, etc. Different trees grow to different heights and live longer than others. Two examples are a Maple tree and an Oak tree. The Oak can grow to be anywhere from 3 to 80 feet tall depending on the species. There are over 600 different Oak tree species. The Maple tree can grow anywhere from 25 to 100 feet tall depending on the species. There are over 120 different species of maple. Now that’s tall, trees this size can absorb absurd amounts of water each day. A fully-grown tree can absorb 100 gallons (about 378.54 L) of water a day.
Trees have a lot of interesting facts. At first glance you might think they are plain and simple. Unless you delve deeper into the facts you really don’t know them all that well. If you’re looking for an interesting research topic, choose trees, they have many facts regarding the Earth. On conclusion learn more about them, dig deep for the more interesting facts, and do Gaia proud and plant a tree.
