Ghost Forests Could Tell Us Which Coastal Regions Are Vulnerable to Environmental Change
Ghost forests are increasingly common along the U.S. East Coast, where once healthy trees have been replaced with bare trunks. Now, scientists believe these tree graveyards could hold clues about how to build resilience to climate change in coastal habitats and predict which forests are most vulnerable.
At the American Chemical Society (ACS) Spring Meeting, held March 22-26, 2026, a team from the University of Delaware presented research showing the link between stem flow and carbon cycling on the forest floor.
“We’re kind of preaching the gospel, not only to the community at large, but also to our own scientific community,” Yu-Ping Chin, a professor in the university’s department of civil and environmental engineering, said in a press release.
Learn more: Chestnut blight has significantly altered the composition of Shenandoah National Park
Growing number of ghost forests
Diagram showing the impact of salt water on coastal forests.
(Image credit: Samantha Chittakone, Delphis Levia and Robyn O’Halloran)
Ghost forests are appearing all along the East Coast, from Maine to South Carolina. A 2025 study published in Sustainability of nature has mapped more than 10 million dead trees on the Atlantic coast of the United States. Another study, published in Environmental Research Letters in 2020, reported that as much as 15 percent (167 square kilometers) of unmanaged land in North Carolina had changed from coastal forest to ghost forest between 2001 and 2014.
“Walking through these coastal forests, surrounded by nature, is beautiful,” said Samantha Chittakone, an undergraduate environmental engineering student at the University of Delaware, who presented the research team’s results at the American Chemical Society (ACS) spring meeting, in a press release.
“However, it is discouraging to see healthy trees become less prevalent as one approaches the shore and the effects of sea level rise become evident,” Chittakone added.
This trend has been attributed to an unfortunate combination of warming temperatures, rising sea levels and the movement of salt water into freshwater habitats, which is drowning and poisoning trees.
Changing the health of the forest floor
The skeletal remains of dead trees are perhaps the most visible sign of a forest undergoing such a transformation, but researchers say important hidden changes are occurring underground, particularly in the way trees process carbon and nutrients.
Their research examined how stem flow (rainwater flowing down the trunk or branches of a tree) affects groundwater (water found beneath the surface of the forest floor) and compared the relationship between the two in dead, healthy, and stressed gum trees inhabiting a coastal forest impacted by sea level rise.
“Stemflow basically injects very important nutrients and chemicals into the forest ecosystem so that the microbiome can thrive there,” said Chin, who explained that the concentration of different nutrients and the texture of the bark can influence the color of the liquid, which ranges from a dark coffee color to a pale tan reminiscent of weak tea.
The samples collected by Chittakone, Chin and others showed that the flow of dead tree stems was less likely to reach ground level than the flow of healthy tree stems. In a press release, Chin likened dead trees to sponges that absorb the flow of stems, preventing water (and the nutrients and carbon it contains) from reaching the soil. The researchers also noted higher than expected sugar concentrations in the flow of stems collected from dead or stressed trees.
“Not only does it change the health of the trees, but it also changes the health of the forest floor,” Chin said.
Chittakone said Discover that water flow is an underutilized resource when it comes to measuring a forest’s response to climate change and saltwater intrusion. She hopes their results can be used to support the conservation and management of coastal forests vulnerable to environmental change.
Learn more: Some fig trees can turn CO2 into stone – a hidden talent that could fight climate change
Article sources
Our Discovermagazine.com editors use peer-reviewed research and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review the articles for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. See the sources used below for this article:
