Do Trees Need Oxygen Fact Check

A tree has the ability to provide an essential of life for all living things on our planet – oxygen, and the power to remove harmful gases like carbon dioxide making the air we breathe healthier.

It is well known that trees act as carbon sinks, taking in carbon dioxide from the air during photosynthesis and releasing the oxygen that humans breathe. While trees use carbon dioxide to make their own food, they actually need oxygen (much like humans do) to process that food into energy.

We therefore suggest that archaeopterid roots systems of the Middle–Upper Devonian (388–359 Ma) would have required soil‐air O2 pressures of 10 kPa comparable to those required by their morphologically similar modern analogues (here modern conifers), assuming a similar respirational demand ...

The metabolism of carbohydrates, the putative respiratory substrate in trees, is expected to yield an ARQ of 1.0. However, previous studies have reported ARQ values ranging between 0.23 and 0.90.

In an extreme treatment, 1% O2+20% CO2 increased respiration by over 30% relative to 1% O2 alone, suggesting a shift in metabolic response to high CO2 as O2 decreases. Although an increase in respiration would be detrimental under limiting O2, ...

... Meanwhile, plants also use their leaves to help absorb energy from the sunlight. They also suck up water through their roots. Water is one key thing plants need to make oxygen.

If a tree is planted deep in soil or mulch, its roots will become starved for oxygen, and it may not survive. Planting a tree deep can lead to girdling roots, root death, and death of the entire tree.

All of earth's oxygen does not come from trees. Rather, the atmospheric oxygen that we depend on as humans comes predominantly from the ocean. According to National Geographic, about 70% of the oxygen in the atmosphere comes from marine plants ...

... Trees generate oxygen through photosynthesis by converting sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into sugar and oxygen, making them essential for breathable air (despite most oxygen coming from ocean phytoplankton).