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Baobabs as symbols of resilience

Nature Plants volume 10, pages 732–735 (2024)Cite this article

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The Original Article was published on 11 June 2018

arising from A. Patrut Nature Plants https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-018-0170-5 (2018)

In 2018, Patrut et al. published a paper in Nature Plants entitled ‘The demise of the largest and oldest African baobabs’ and reported that ten of the 15 trees they examined had recently died or collapsed1. The authors characterized this mortality as ‘most unexpected’, although they did not provide demographic data of entire baobab populations to illustrate what might be expected. In addition, in the penultimate sentence they proposed that ‘the demise of monumental baobabs may be associated at least in part with significant modifications of climate conditions that affect southern Africa in particular’, despite not mentioning climate effects previously. Although the authors then clearly stated that ‘further research is necessary to support or refute this supposition’, the suggestion that recent failure of some of the largest, most ancient baobabs may have been due to climate change caught the media’s attention and went viral. A fleeting speculation became exaggerated and cast as an enduring fact: climate change is killing Africa’s baobabs. In contrast, we provide evidence that most baobab (Adansonia digitata) populations found on mainland Africa are healthy, and the cohort of the oldest and largest African baobabs is enduring. We discuss the longevity of baobabs and speculate on what may have caused the collapse and death of some of these giants. We also give a brief overview of other threats and provide a summary.

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Fig. 1: Examples of collapsed trees.

Data availability

Data not included in this manuscript are available via Dryad at https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.sj3tx96bp (ref. 16).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Science, Engineering and Agriculture, University of Venda, Thohoyandou, South Africa

    Sarah M. Venter

  2. Restoration and Conservation Biology Research Group, School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Ed T. F. Witkowski

Authors
  1. Sarah M. Venter
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  2. Ed T. F. Witkowski
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Contributions

S.M.V. did field work, collected and analysed data, produced figures and tables, and wrote the paper. E.T.F.W contributed to editing and writing the paper.

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Correspondence to Sarah M. Venter.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Venter, S.M., Witkowski, E.T.F. Baobabs as symbols of resilience. Nat. Plants 10, 732–735 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-024-01681-4

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