Summary and Analysis of The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate-Discoveries from a Secret World: Based on the Book by Peter Wohlleben
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Summary and Analysis of The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate-Discoveries from a Secret World: Based on the Book by Peter Wohlleben
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Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader.
This short summary and analysis of The Hidden Life of Trees includes:
- Historical context
- Chapter-by-chapter overviews
- Profiles of the main characters
- Important quotes
- Fascinating trivia
- Glossary of terms
- Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work
About The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben:
The Hidden Life of Trees explains the astonishing ways trees interact with each other and respond to their environment. It details how they communicate via underground fungal networks, provide sugar to help trees that are stressed, warn each other of insect or fungal attacks, and coordinate their growth and reproduction. The author also describes how forestry methods can be improved to work with this complex inter-tree network to allow for healthier trees.
Naturalist Peter Wohlleben puts into context the invaluable role forests play in sequestering carbon, talks about the contribution that large, old trees can play in battling climate change, and how caring for woodlands is vital to all life on earth.
The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504020459 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Worth Books |
| Publication date: | 04/11/2017 |
| Series: | Smart Summaries |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 30 |
| Sales rank: | 461,080 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
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Summary and Analysis of The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World
Based on the Book by Peter Wohlleben
By Worth Books
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 2017 Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2045-9
CHAPTER 1
Summary
1. Friendships
Scientists have discovered that trees in forests are linked by fungal networks, or interconnected roots that allow them to exchange sugar and by which they can communicate. This provides benefits to each member of the forest. By living in a group, each tree maintains moist soil, a suitable microclimate, and shelter from wind and rain. A tree also benefits from having nearby trees that can help it with energy when it is stressed. Planted trees aren't able to receive this kind of community assistance because their roots are damaged during planting and can't form the necessary network.
Need to Know: Trees form "friendships" and these friendships help them stay healthy and live longer. The whole forest benefits when the trees care for each other, because a colony of healthy trees means a better ecosystem for all.
2. The Language of Trees
A tree passes information, such as the presence of insect or fungal invaders, along to neighboring trees. Transmitting these alerts allows other trees to prepare their defenses. Chemical signals are released into the air, and they are passed between trees via their interconnected roots and the network of fungus that spreads between them under the ground. Electrical signals are also sent through this system, what scientist Dr. Suzanne Simard calls the "wood wide web." Trees also have the ability to communicate with other species, such as when they produce the blossoms and sweet odors that attract bees for pollination.
Need to Know: Trees have a language. Instead of words, they use chemical and electrical signals sent through the air or through an underground system of roots and fungus to communicate with other trees and species.
3. Social Security
Traditional forestry assumes that it is better to grow trees with lots of space between them because it gives each tree a lot of sunlight and water. But researchers at the Institute for Environmental Research at rwth Aachen found that beech trees synchronize their rate of sugar production so that all trees are producing sugar at the same rate. They do this by sharing sugar with each other through their network of roots and fungus. If trees are felled to give the remaining trees more room, the trees that are left are on their own, without the network to exchange sugar. Some have trouble surviving. The mutual assistance trees provide each other is consistent with natural selection for individual fitness because each tree helps the others survive and thrive.
Need to Know: Trees have their own version of social security. A tree that is getting plenty of sun and water and is making more than enough sugar can share with trees that don't have ideal growing conditions. All the trees benefit, because a forest where all the trees are healthy creates more protection from heat and wind, and because if one of the strongest trees gets sick, it can rely on the trees around it for assistance.
4. Love
Deciduous trees carefully "plan" when they will reproduce based on the levels of their energy reserves, and they communicate with neighbor trees so that they all reproduce at the same time. They synchronize the years they reproduce, which for this species involves producing and releasing seeds. Only producing seeds in certain years helps protect the seeds from herbivores. For example, deer and boar love to eat the seeds in acorns and beechnuts. When trees stop production of these foods, it decreases the populations of these herbivores, increasing the trees' chances of successful reproduction in the next cycle. Another advantage of deciduous trees reproducing in sync is that the genes from many trees will be mixed, preventing inbreeding.
Trees have several strategies for dispersing pollen and encouraging genetic diversity, including scattering pollen via insects or in the wind. In some species, each particular tree only has one sex. Other types of trees have male and female blossoms that open at different times of the year to prevent self-pollination. A bird cherry tree is actually able to determine the genetic makeup of pollen and block its own pollen from reaching an egg.
Need to Know: Deciduous trees don't reproduce every year, which helps limit the populations of herbivores that feed on their seeds. In contrast, coniferous trees usually reproduce annually. Although some birds are able to eat the seeds inside these trees' cones, herbivores aren't the same threat as they are to deciduous trees. All trees have strategies to promote genetic diversity, which makes the trees healthier.
5. The Tree Lottery
Like effective companies or well-organized families, trees budget their energy. Creating blossoms consumes an immense amount of energy. Species that blossom annually carefully adjust their energy use over the course of the year, while those that blossom periodically need years of recovery after the enormous energy used for bud production. During their blossoming year, these trees are vulnerable to insect infestation because they don't have the energy to put up their usual defenses.
The energy of blossoming and creating seeds is energy put into producing the next generation of trees. Different species of trees have different strategies for when their seeds sprout. Some seeds sprout right away, some seeds can wait a year or two before they sprout, and some seeds can remain dormant for as many as five years. There are many dangers for the sprouts — hungry animals, bad weather, lack of water. Most don't survive.
Need to Know: Huge amounts of energy are required for a tree to reproduce, and most seedlings don't make it. Odds are, a tree will only produce one other viable tree. A poplar, for example, will make over a billion seeds in its lifetime. But statistics say that out of those billions, only one will grow into a mature tree. For a tree, reaching sexual maturity is like winning the lottery.
6. Slowly Does It
Trees usually grow slowly. A young beech tree growing under the canopy of a parent tree will only have access to the limited sunlight that reaches the forest floor, about 3% of the total sunlight. The lack of sunlight limits sugar production, so there isn't much energy available for growth. But this forced slow growth is actually good for the young tree because it makes its wood dense and resistant to breakage in future storms and attacks by fungi.
When a parent tree falls and opens up a patch of sunlight, the young tree must grow fast. It has to compete with the other young trees for that sunlight and the growth-fueling energy it provides. After about twenty years, the surrounding adult trees will have spread their branches into the gap and taken away the abundance of sunlight. This forces the now medium-height young tree to wait, possibly decades, before it can grow again. Only when another adult tree dies and a new gap opens, will the young tree have the chance to grow to its full height.
Need to Know: Young beech trees can spend almost three hundred years under the canopies of mother trees. The mothers force the young to take their time growing (which is healthy for them), because the mothers limit the amount of sunlight the young receive. The mothers can be thought of as "nursing" the young during this long period. The mothers send the young the sugar and nutrients they need to survive through the network of roots and fungus.
7. Forest Etiquette
The perfectly formed tree should have a long, absolutely straight trunk. Its roots should reach out evenly all around it and push down into the ground. The top of a deciduous tree should have strong, symmetrical branches that angle up. The top of a coniferous tree should have strong, symmetrical branches that are horizontal or angled a bit down. But a lot of trees deviate from this ideal. For example, trees growing next to clearings or ponds or lakes often send branches far out into the abundant sunshine these openings provide. And the trunks of trees growing high on mountainsides are often bent down slope from the force of snow in the winter.
Need to Know: Trees that follow the "etiquette" of the forest and grow into the ideal shape are strong. They can withstand high winds and heavy rain and snow, which allows them to live a long time.
8. Tree School
Water is very important to trees. Trees can create their own energy via photosynthesis, but they cannot create their own water — they must absorb water from their environment. Just as trees must budget their energy stores, they must budget their water reserves. In summer, hot and dry conditions make water scarce, so trees need to store up water in the winter, when water is more abundant. Winter is doubly beneficial in terms of a tree's water budget: there is more rain, thus more water — and the tree is not growing, which means it isn't using water. When summer arrives, trees spread out their use of water. If a tree uses its water too soon, its wood dries out and cracks. The tree will then adjust its usage in the future to prevent this from happening again.
Trees also make adjustments if they aren't stable enough. When the wind bends a tree, micro-tears are formed. The tree responds by strengthening itself in the injured areas.
Need to Know: Trees have the capacity to learn. If a tree uses too much of its stored water at one point, it will ration its water use in the future, even if there is plenty of water available. If the wind caused a tree pain by creating micro-tears, the tree will respond by fortifying these weak areas.
9. United We Stand, Divided We Fall
Trees have a mutualistic relationship with fungi. Fungi form an extensive underground web called a mycelium that penetrates tree roots and interconnects nearby trees. These fungi can provide a range of benefits to trees. They provide nutrients and water. Through their connection with other trees, they allow for exchange of energy and information among trees. Then, trees can defend others from harmful bacteria and fungi. The fungi, in turn, benefits by receiving sugar from the tree. Fungi are not passive members of this mutualism: they can synthesize plant hormones that steer the growth of the tree.
Need to Know: Trees are supported by other members of the ecosystem. Fungi give trees the biggest benefits, but trees get help from other sources, as well. For example, woodpeckers eat insects that are destructive to trees, and black-headed cardinal beetles eat the larvae of hurtful wood-boring beetles.
10. The Mysteries of Moving Water
A large quantity of water flows up through trees from roots to leaves. There are two standard theories of how this happens: capillary action and transpiration. Capillary action is what allows water to be drawn up the interior of a straw. It is based on the adhesion of the water molecules to the surface of the straw — or the surface of xylem tubes within a tree — and adhesion of water molecules to each other. Transpiration is the evaporation of water from leaves to the air as water vapor. As molecules of water are transpired, new molecules are pulled up to replace them. Osmosis is also a factor in the movement of water. Water will move from a cell with less sugar to a cell with more sugar until both cells have an equal amount of water.
Need to Know: Capillary action, transpiration, and osmosis are the standard explanations for how water moves through a tree, but there must be other factors that science hasn't been able to identify yet. In the spring, just before a tree's leaves open, water shoots up the trunk with the strongest force. Since the leaves aren't open, transpiration can't be the cause of the water pressure. Capillary action can't explain it, because capillary action only moves water about three feet up. Osmosis can't explain the water pressure either. Osmosis only occurs in a tree's roots and leaves where there are connected cells, not in the long tubes that run up the trunk.
11. Trees Aging Gracefully
Trees change their bark and their growth patterns as they age. As a tree grows in diameter, cells of the bark slough off, and sections of the bark eventually crack and are replaced by new bark to accommodate the growing girth. This is why young trees often have smooth bark, and older trees often have cracked, wrinkled bark. Trees grow in height for a large part of their life span, but eventually stop. In some species, the crowns will still grow horizontally until it looks like there is a huge bird's nest at the top of the tree.
Need to Know: There are similarities between the way trees and humans age. A person's skin is like a tree's bark. Both start out smooth and get wrinkled over time. Both can be damaged by disease or too much sun. When a tree gets older, the branches at the crown get shorter and shorter, the way a human's hair can thin with age. Both trees and people have less energy as they get older, and both eventually lose body mass.
12. Mighty Oak or Mighty Wimp?
Oaks vary in success according to their environment. In a dense forest of beech trees, the branches take away needed sunlight from oaks, and beech roots take away needed water. This creates difficulties for the oaks, and they have trouble competing. But in a more open area, such as farmland or a clearing, an oak can live much longer than a beech tree. They have a high tannin content and very strong bark to defend against attacks by fungi and insects.
Need to Know: Trees have been shown to share resources, but that doesn't always happen between trees of different species. Beech trees will help each other, but will actively work against other types of trees, such as the oak.
13. Specialists
Trees have to deal with the conditions of the individual spot where they germinated because they will live there their entire lives. Conditions vary in terms of moisture, nutrient levels, and amount of sunlight. An ideal spot would have an abundance of all of these things. But ideal spots are rare, and trees have to adapt. Spruce trees, for example, are able to thrive in locations with short summers and very cold winters that would kill other kinds of trees. To avoid breaking under the weight of heavy snowfall, they grow straight, and in winter their branches bend diagonally downward in a classic Christmas tree shape.
Need to Know: Most trees don't get an ideal environment. They have to adapt to survive. The different strategies they've developed have created diversity among species. For example, alders thrive in swampy ground that would kill other species, because alders have developed cork cells near the bottoms of their trunks to let in air.
14. Tree or Not Tree?
The dictionary definition of a tree is a "woody plant with a trunk from which branches grow," but this definition neglects what might be the most important part of a tree: the roots. Roots are in many ways the equivalent of an animal's nerve center, storing information from the past and reacting to the new. Roots receive stimuli as they move through the ground. If a root finds something toxic or impenetrable, it will send signals to the growing tip that cause it to change direction.
Need to Know: The roots of a spruce in Sweden, an old tree that consists of "a carpet of flat shrubby growth around a single small trunk," were tested with carbon-14 dating and found to be over nine thousand years old. By the current dictionary definition, this growth wouldn't be considered a tree, but perhaps it should be. The roots of the spruce are the most permanent part of the tree. They hold the experiences the tree has acquired, and are keeping what remains of the tree alive.
15. In the Realm of Darkness
In forests, our attention naturally is pulled to the trunks, branches, and leaves of the vegetation above the ground. But a lot is going on below it, too. As much as 50% of the life in a forest exists in the soil. "There are more life forms in a handful of soil than there are people on the planet," Wohlleben points out. Creation of soil is vital for the existence of trees, and if more soil is lost each year than new soil is created, the soil — and the forest itself — will disappear. Intact forests lose much less soil annually than disturbed forests.
Need to Know: If all the animals living above ground in the forest disappeared, trees would still thrive. In contrast, the mostly microscopic (and many unidentified) creatures living in the soil are vital for the survival of forests.
16. Carbon Dioxide Vacuums
A single tree can hold up to twenty-two tons of carbon dioxide in its tissues. Forests provide an immense global sink for carbon. And carbon is not only stored in trees themselves — a great deal of carbon is also stored in humus on the forest floor and below the ground. This humus comes from leaves that fell from deciduous trees in the autumn and from trees that died and decayed. In the Carboniferous Period, when coal was being formed three hundred million years ago, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air was nine times what it is today. Ancient trees growing at that time pulled in this gas, dramatically reducing the atmospheric carbon dioxide level. When the trees died they formed peat, and in turn formed coal, which kept the carbon locked up in the ground. Because of the logging industry today, hardly any coal is being formed — the forests are being cleared too often to allow the process to take place.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Summary and Analysis of The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World by Worth Books. Copyright © 2017 Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Context,Overview,
Summary,
Cast of "Characters",
Direct Quotes and Analysis,
Trivia,
What's That Word?,
Critical Response,
About Peter Wohlleben,
For Your Information,
Bibliography,
Copyright,
Related Subjects
Customer Reviews
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