Can a tree die from old age?

It seems like conifers have the best bet of living to be really old. I don't understand their immuno-chemistry but there must be something there.

This topic has come up many times. The conjecture is that if decay and infection could be reduced/eliminated trees could live much longer. A dependant issue is the carrying capacity of the site where the tree is growing. When do the amounts of nutrition and water become limiting?
 
Short answer is NO.
Genetically, trees do not have a biological clock that
wiill tell them its time to die.
Trees only know to live.
So if all is in sufficient quantities trees are immortal.
We serve earthly GODs in this respect.
Cheers
 
Well, it sure stands to question then....

Why do different species seem to have set lifespans? River birches always start to fall apart in the best of conditions, at 30-40 years. Water oaks, around here, 70-100. So, maybe humans don't die from old age either.

Anyway, not trying to be controversial, but this might be one of those questions that doesn't really have a concrete answer.
 
If you google the concept, you'll find the most common theory about that. The theory that is commonly talked about in colleges is that the body's process of cellular DNA cloning has a low level of integrity. After trillions of generations of cell cloning in the body, the DNA code becomes distorted. It mutates, and that code is what manages cell reproduction. If cells were perfect little buildings, DNA is perfect little blue prints. As the blue prints randomly change, the cells inherently fail. The system of failed cell manufacturing is exactly what people have always called "old age."

Essentially the poorly built cells are incapable of processing food molecules into energy molecules at adequate supply levels to be immune to illness and stressers. Eventually the incapacitated energy production system falls short of the minimum energy levels, and an organ or two outright fails. It's a downward spiral in my opinion.

The DNA mutations which cause all of this is a disease in the area of genetics I would think.

Older trees do not suffer stressers as readily as young trees, so they may have the same DNA mutation problems as we do.
 
TreeLogic's observation about the differences in the usual age ranges of trees is a good one. We usually think of tree age as being the longevity of a particular stem. If those river birches in TL's post fall apart at 40 years, yet keep sprouting from the roots or the broken butt of the stem, they could keep that genetic individual going for a long time. That's the basis for folks calling a specific aspen clone "thousands of years" old, even though none of the stems may be more than 100. I just read the link from jomoco. That's my point. The grove is estimated at 80,000 years...but none of the stems may be more than 200 years old, or less.
Sure, I try to keep it commonsensical and look at ages of individual stems, but that's not the only way to look at it.
BBBTree touches on the corruption of chromosomes and DNA sequences from many generations of copying. That's what most cell biology texts teach, and I'm inclined to believe it. But true enough, the model systems that have been studied in the detail necessary to be sure have been pretty few in number.
Back to TreeLogic, all trees have to allocate their resources for competing needs of growth vs. defense and safety vs. efficiency. Some strategies are great for colonizing disturbed landscapes fast, getting a quick foothold, growing tall, and dying and decaying early. Other trees don't like disturbance at all, do OK in shade, and invest a lot in natural wood preservatives to keep the wood intact, even after the tree is dead.
No one strategy is best, it depends where you are.

As for whether a tree would live forever if protected from harm, starvation, or too much of good things...I guess that is taken as a matter of faith, whichever way you go. For me, as that will likely never happen, I don't spend much time on it!
 
All good info from everyone. While trees regrowing from a root system can rightlfully be called the "same tree", do they really count? For all intents and purposes, when we watch our favorite 40 year old tree crumble to the ground, then regrow 20 years later to something that looks like a smaller version of what it was, do we call it the same tree? Probably not.
 
Short answer is NO.
Genetically, trees do not have a biological clock that
wiill tell them its time to die.
Trees only know to live.
So if all is in sufficient quantities trees are immortal.
We serve earthly GODs in this respect.
Cheers

What he said. The lifespan concept is borne of a very limited sample, usually of very stressed urban trees. Hence it is of questionable value imo to generalize/extrapolate.
 
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