Scientists Used Lasers and Citizen Scientists to Find a “Lost World” of Giant Trees

Scientists used lasers and citizen scientists to find the tallest tree in East Asia, the 84.1-meter Taiwania fir. The team, led by Rebecca Chia-Chun Hsu, found the tree in Taiwan’s remote mountain regions after ten years of fieldwork. The study, published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, was conducted by a team including researchers from the Institute of Taiwan Forestry Research and National Cheng Kung University. The researchers used LiDAR technology and citizen science to identify the tree, which grows at elevations of about 2,087 meters and on slopes with an average inclination of 40 degrees. The team measured one tree at 71.7 meters but concluded that ground-based surveys alone would not be sufficient for such a large and complex landscape.

The team identified 941 trees taller than 65 meters by the end of 2022, and in 2023, they found a candidate for Taiwan’s tallest tree, measuring 84.1 meters. The tree was called the ‘Heaven Sword of the Da’an River’ and described by the Indigenous Rukai people as ones that ‘hit the moon.’ The researchers also identified about 30 large Taiwania firs in an ancient stand near Mt. Benya, and recorded 11 individual trees exceeding 65 meters in height. The mapping effort brought the team back to the Great Ghost Lake region, where they identified about 30 large Taiwania firs growing together.

The importance of these forests goes beyond their height. In 2024, the team surveyed Tao Tree Valley to determine carbon storage, finding a carbon density of 1,384.5 megagrams per hectare, comparable to some of the world’s most carbon-rich forests. The researchers noted that their estimate did not include root systems and may have underestimated the forest’s true carbon storage. The combination of LiDAR mapping, citizen science, and field verification gives them a way to search terrain that would otherwise be nearly impossible to survey systematically.

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