Initials and pictures carved into trees are a common sight along hikes in aspen groves. Recent research sheds light on how much this carving actually harms trees.
“Arborglyph is the technical term for a human carving on trees that is either a symbol or a picture," said Jim Lutz, a professor in wildland resources at Utah State University. Arborglyphs are the topic of his latest study.
“Carving trees appears in Shakespeare most obviously in ‘As You Like It,'" Lutz said. "So, 500 years ago, there was enough familiarity with carving trees that Shakespeare was able to work this into one of his plays."
But that’s just written history. Indigenous peoples the world over mark trees for various reasons. But the question that Lutz was after is one we’ve all probably wondered when facing an arborglyph on the trail. Does it hurt the tree?
“So, we expected that these carvings would be bad for the trees,” he said.
In total, Lutz’s team looked at over 30,000 trees for signs of carvings. Surprisingly, only aspen trees in their study area were carved. They expected that those with arborglyphs would be growing slower and dying more than their uncarved counterparts.
“And that's not what we found," Lutz said. "What we found was that the trees with carvings not only were bigger, but they were also growing more, and they didn't die at any greater rate than the trees without carvings.”
The reason, Lutz explained, is because carving a tree wounds it, allowing for an infection point that absolutely does do harm to the tree. But then why did his study find that carved trees seem to growing faster? The answer, he said, has to do with human behavior.
“So, when people select a tree, they're going to pick one that's out in the open," Lutz said. "This means very little competition for the tree and they're going to select one with nice smooth bark, which means it has been growing quickly, and will likely continue to be growing quickly.”
Essentially, since humans are biased in the trees they choose to carve, and are more likely to choose big healthy, fast growing big trees, then those trees are still more likely to survive, even though they were wounded in the process.
So, does this mean we should all start carving our initials into trees?
“No, we are not recommending that people carve trees," Lutz said.
