Data from: baobabs: symbol of resilience or victim of climate change?

In 2018, Patrut et al. published a paper in Nature Plants entitled “The
demise of the largest and oldest African baobabs” and reported that 10 of
the 15 trees they examined had recently died or collapsed. The authors
characterized this mortality as “most unexpected”, although they did not
provide demographic data of entire baobab populations to illustrate what
might be expected. In addition, in the penultimate sentence they proposed
that “the demise of monumental baobabs may be associated at least in part
with significant modifications of climate conditions that affect southern
Africa in particular”, despite not mentioning climate effects previously.
Although the authors then clearly stated that “further research is
necessary to support or refute this supposition”, the suggestion that
recent failure of some of the largest, most ancient baobabs may have been
due to climate change caught the media’s attention and went viral. A
fleeting speculation became exaggerated and cast as an enduring fact –
climate change is killing Africa’s baobabs.  In contrast, we
provide evidence that most baobab (Adansonia digitata) populations found
on mainland Africa are healthy, and the cohort of oldest and largest
African baobabs is enduring. We discuss the longevity of baobabs and
speculate on what may have caused the collapse and death of some of these
giants. We also give a brief overview of other threats and provide a
summary.