What's the natural life span of a tree?

Question

And/or the average? Thnx!!!

Answer 1

between a 100 and 5000 years depending the specie

millions of species of trees

the bristle cone pine is one of the oldest

and spruce ,red woods also get old so do figs

other trees are old at a hundred or 200

Answer 2

Different species have difference purposes and different life spans.  That is how things go in nature.

The bristle cone previously mentioned and the Lignum Vitae tree are slow growing and live a very, very long time; thousands of years.

On the other hand a Southern Red Cedar is considered a pioneer specie.  It colonizes a barren sandy soil and through its decaying leaves, branches and bark, enriches the soil to make it better for more "advanced" trees.

So. Red Cedars develop heart rot after growing for a few decades and when a storm comes by they blow over and the plant community succeeds to another.

Then you have secondary growth, like long leaf or slash pines (at least here in Florida)  These trees can be over a 100 years old and must be at least 100 to form a solid heart of resin impregnated wood called "Lighter pine".  A good name.

Pines will stay in a community if lightening or man-sparked fire maintains a routine of burning the area every couple of years.  This keeps burring out the oaks that try to move in ands if fire is removed from the ecosystem then pine woods will revert to oak hammocks the climax community.

So, this may explain why some trees get old, some never do, and if you can determine weather a specie is or isn't fire dependent or fire adapted you can understand their place and life in nature.

Answer 3

The average tree lasts less than one year. The seed or root that starts up a new tree does not ask whether there is another tree shading the spot it starts, taking away all its water from the roots.

So mostly, new trees die before they survive one year.

Trees tend to grow far too close to each other until one of them manages to reach up above the other and deprive the other of sunlight.

Some trees put down deep roots that allow the tree to survive in drought, but also to deprive neighbor trees of water.

So, naturally, trees do not survive nearly as long as a tree out alone on the horizon might last.

When we see a grove of mature trees, we are looking at survivors, not average trees.