I suspect the extremely slow ability to adapt to environmental changes led the tree to near extinction so in the end near immortality is not a good strategy when there is a need to adapt.
> I suspect the extremely slow ability to adapt to environmental changes led the tree to near extinction so in the end near immortality is not a good strategy
Those are different concerns. Immortality is about how long an individual tree can live. But how quickly the species can react to environmental change is determined by the rate at which an individual tree reproduces, not how long it lives.
I suspect the extremely slow ability to adapt to environmental changes led the tree to near extinction so in the end near immortality is not a good strategy when there is a need to adapt.