{"id":3566,"date":"2016-03-10T11:01:40","date_gmt":"2016-03-10T19:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jcmgf.org\/mg2\/?p=3566"},"modified":"2021-04-21T01:00:03","modified_gmt":"2021-04-21T08:00:03","slug":"german-forest-ranger-finds-that-trees-have-a-social-network-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jcmgf.myparkpack.com\/mg2\/german-forest-ranger-finds-that-trees-have-a-social-network-too\/","title":{"rendered":"German Forest Ranger Finds That Trees Have a Social Network, Too."},"content":{"rendered":"
“When I say, \u2018Trees suckle their children,\u2019 everyone knows immediately what I mean.\u201d PETER WOHLLEBEN<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n
GORDON WELTERS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES<\/em><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n
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H\u00dcMMEL, Germany \u2014 IN the deep stillness of a forest in winter, the sound of footsteps on a carpet of leaves died away. Peter Wohlleben<\/a> had found what he was looking for: a pair of towering beeches. \u201cThese trees are friends,\u201d he said, craning his neck to look at the leafless crowns, black against a gray sky. \u201cYou see how the thick branches point away from each other? That\u2019s so they don\u2019t block their buddy\u2019s light.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before moving on to an elderly beech to show how trees, like people, wrinkle as they age, he added, \u201cSometimes, pairs like this are so interconnected at the roots that when one tree dies, the other one dies, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

German forest ranger Peter Wohlleben says trees are social beings, interconnected thanks to a natural network. They are even able to build strong friendships.<\/div>\n
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We often struggle to feel empathy towards mammals, animals so similar to us, in a way that believing that a tree, a creature Aristotle considered closer to the inorganic world than the animal one, are\u00a0intelligent and social beings\u00a0<\/strong>can only seem absurd. Yet, that\u2019s the way it is.<\/p>\n

Among the main supporters of plant intelligence<\/a><\/strong> we find Stefano Mancuso<\/a><\/strong>, Italian neurobiologist and Director of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology (LINV)<\/a><\/strong> in Florence, Italy. He\u2019s not the only one to investigate the mysterious and largely unknown world of plants. German Forest Ranger Peter Wohlleben<\/strong> published a best-selling book titled \u201cThe Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate \u2014 Discoveries From a Secret World,\u201d claiming that\u00a0trees are highly social creatures.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrees can count, learn and remember, and warn each other of danger by sending electrical signals across a fungal network known as the Wood Wide Web<\/strong>\u201c. According to this theory, root extremities (where plant intelligence is believed to be enclosed) work in close collaboration, creating a large network that extends for dozens of kilometres.<\/p>\n

Trying to anthropomorphise plants, beings with an alien and mysterious intelligence and life cycles so different from us, is probably not the right thing to do. Yet, trees are able to carry out incredible solidarity actions. According to Wohlleben, they\u2019re in fact able to keep the ancient stumps of long-felled companions alive<\/strong> for centuries by feeding them a sugar solution through their roots.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThese trees are friends<\/strong>,\u201d said the forest ranger to a journalist of The New York Times, pointing at a pair of beeches in the Black Forest, Germany. \u201cYou see how the thick branches point away from each other? That\u2019s so they don\u2019t block their buddy\u2019s light. Sometimes, pairs like this are so interconnected at the roots that when one tree dies, the other one dies, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wohlleben aims to provide a new way of considering forests, by re-imagining<\/strong>them, and acknowledging the essential role they play in the cultural consciousness, as they\u2019re currently mainly seen as \u201corganic robots\u201d designed to produce oxygen and timber.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

You can read the entire article here:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/nyti.ms\/1OUllE2<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“When I say, \u2018Trees suckle their children,\u2019 everyone knows immediately what I mean.\u201d PETER WOHLLEBEN GORDON WELTERS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES \u00a0 H\u00dcMMEL, Germany \u2014 IN the deep stillness of a forest in winter, the sound of footsteps on a carpet of leaves died away. Peter Wohlleben had found what he was looking for: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":3568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[86,81,46],"class_list":["post-3566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-86","tag-beneficial-fungi","tag-native-plants-of-the-pacific-northwest","classic-edited"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcmgf.myparkpack.com\/mg2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcmgf.myparkpack.com\/mg2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcmgf.myparkpack.com\/mg2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcmgf.myparkpack.com\/mg2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcmgf.myparkpack.com\/mg2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3566"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jcmgf.myparkpack.com\/mg2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5473,"href":"https:\/\/jcmgf.myparkpack.com\/mg2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3566\/revisions\/5473"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcmgf.myparkpack.com\/mg2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcmgf.myparkpack.com\/mg2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcmgf.myparkpack.com\/mg2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcmgf.myparkpack.com\/mg2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}