The Trees are Talking
Over the past few weeks this column, has spent some time in the coastal oak forest, the live oak (Quercus virginiana) hammock to be exact. There is more to explore along our shores, and we’ll get there soon. But, for now, let us linger a little longer among the trees.
To walk among a familiar stand of ancient trees is to walk among old friends. We find ourselves proffering a gentle hand to a fissured trunk and offering a low greeting. Communing with nature it seems often involves talking to trees, or if you are Clint Eastwood singing a plaintive song, ‘I talk to the trees, but they don’t listen to me…’. I know what you are thinking, which is more surprising: talking to trees or Clint Eastwood singing?! Well, it turns out Clint may have been right about trees: they may not spend much time listening to us because they are so busy talking to each other.
Canadian forester, Suzanne Simard, grew up fascinated by trees especially by the incredibly intricate web of roots below ground that seemed to connect all the trees of the forest. She wondered whether trees in some way communicated with each other and shared information and resources, and suspected that this subterranean network was the key. In a series of simple, elegant experiments involving tracking different isotopes of carbon (including radioactive C14) using a Geiger counter, she proved that trees were shunting resources between each other. In some cases, this resource sharing occurred among different species of tree. Through these pathways Simard has likened entire forests to single functioning organisms. With these discoveries Suzanne and her team changed our view of trees and forests forever.
How trees achieve this is even more remarkable. They have recruited the assistance of a completely different kingdom: fungi. Fungi grow incredibly intricate and extensive thread-like structures underground called mycelia. They are so pervasive in soil that the patch of earth below a single footprint can contain hundreds of miles of them! Mycelia coat and connect tree roots and provide the conduit for resource transfer among trees, and for nutrient transfer from the soil. So, what’s in it for the fungi? Well, they get a share of the profits of this symbiotic relationship in the provision of sugars from photosynthesis occurring high up in the tree canopy.
Some trees are incredibly important to this shunting of resources and information across the forest. They tend to be large, old trees and act like central hubs in the underground trafficking of carbon and defense signals. Just like elephant matriarchs, these old ‘mother trees’ assist younger trees and are critical to the survival of entire woodlands.
Vero Beach residents love their trees, and the community has been recognized nationally as a Tree City. City ordinances require that new landscaping comprise at least 50% native species and permits are required to remove specimen and protected trees.
From ancient folklore to Tolkien, and from the legend of Sleepy Hollow to the poems of Robert Frost, we have wondered about the power of trees to communicate. We now know that they do possess this ability and it should give us pause when we contemplate the cutting or removal of a tree.
ABOUT GREG
Before coming to FAU’s Harbor Branch, Greg earned both his bachelor’s degree and his doctorate degree from University College Dublin in Ireland, researching badgers, a small mammal related to weasels, minks and otters. So, how did he end up in Florida researching whales thousands of miles away? Once Greg graduated with his doctorate degree, he moved to California in search of jobs. After facing several rejections, one person at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in San Diego said he had a small project on belugas no one was working on. He was shocked at such a unique opportunity to work with marine mammals. “I pounced on that,” he says. “And the rest, as they say, is history.”
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Written by Greg O’Corry-Crowe / Photography by Colette Dooley