Ash trees evolving resistance to ash dieback

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July 2, 2025
2 min read

Ash trees evolving resistance to ash dieback

Researchers from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and Queen Mary University of London have discovered that a new generation of ash trees in Britain are showing greater resistance to the disease, ash dieback. These trees are growing naturally in Britain’s woodlands.

Natural selection, they found, is allowing the ash trees to evolve with every generation. The study was published in Science and offers hope for the future of the UK’s woodlands and landscape.

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Ash dieback is caused by a fungus known as Hymenoscyphus fraxineus. The fungus arrived in Britain in 2012, leading to an emergency COBRA meeting. It has since plagued the countryside, leaving behind the remains of dead or dying ash trees. Predictions estimated that as much as 85% of ash trees would be affected by the disease, as none were displaying complete immunity.

But this new study compared the DNA of trees that were established before and after the fungal invasion. Researchers observed subtle shifts in the frequency of DNA variants linked to tree health across thousands of locations in the genome. These indicated that younger generations had evolved better resistance to the disease than their forebears, giving hope to the long-term survival of the species.

It also provides further evidence to Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

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