The Hidden Life of Trees: The International Bestseller – What They Feel, How They Communicate

When beeches and oaks put blooming on hold for a number of years, this has grave consequences for insects, as well—especially for bees. It’s the same for bees as it is for wild boar: a multi-year hiatus causes their populations to collapse. Or, more accurately, could cause them to collapse, because bees never build up large populations in deciduous forests in the first place. The reason is that true forest trees couldn’t care less about these little helpers. What use are the few pollinators left after barren years when you then unfurl millions upon millions of blossoms over hundreds of square miles? If you are a beech or an oak, you have to come up with a more reliable method of pollination, perhaps even one that doesn’t exact payment. And what could be more natural than using the wind? Wind blows the powdery pollen out of the blossoms and carries it over to neighboring trees. The wind has a further advantage. It still blows when temperatures fall, even when they drop below 53 degrees Fahrenheit, which is when it gets too chilly for bees and they stay home.

Conifers bloom almost every year, which means bees are an option for pollination because they would always find food. However, conifers are native to northern forests, which are too chilly for bees to be out and about while the trees are blooming, and that is probably why conifers, like beeches and oaks, prefer to rely on the wind. Conifers don’t need to worry about taking breaks from blooming, like beeches or oaks, because they have no reason to fear deer and wild boar. The small seeds inside the cones of Spruce & Co. just don’t offer an attractive source of nutrition. True, there are birds such as red crossbills, which pick off cones with the tips of their powerful crossed bills and eat the seeds inside, but in general, birds don’t seem to be a big problem. And because there is almost no animal that likes to store conifer seeds for winter food, the trees release their potential heirs into the world on tiny wings. Thus equipped, their seeds float slowly down from the tips of their branches and can easily be carried away on a breath of wind.

Spruce & Co. produce huge quantities of pollen, almost as though they wanted to outdo deciduous trees in the mating department. They produce such huge quantities that even in a light breeze, enormous dusty clouds billow over coniferous forests in bloom, giving the impression of a fire smoldering beneath the treetops. This raises the inevitable question about how inbreeding can be avoided in such chaotic conditions. Trees have survived until today only because there is a great deal of genetic diversity within each species. If they all release their pollen at the same time, then the tiny grains of pollen from all the trees mix together and drift through the canopy. And because a tree’s own pollen is particularly concentrated around its own branches, there’s a real danger its pollen will end up fertilizing its own female flowers. But, as I just mentioned, that is precisely what the trees want to avoid. To reduce this possibility, trees have come up with a number of different strategies.

Some species—like spruce—rely on timing. Male and female blossoms open a few days apart so that, most of the time, the latter will be dusted with the foreign pollen of other spruce. This is not an option for trees like bird cherries, which rely on insects. Bird cherries produce male and female sex organs in the same blossom, and they are one of the few species of true forest trees that allow themselves to be pollinated by bees. As the bees make their way through the whole crown, they cannot help but spread the tree’s own pollen. But the bird cherry is alert and senses when the danger of inbreeding looms. When a pollen grain lands on a stigma, its genes are activated and it grows a delicate tube down to the ovary in search of an egg. As it is doing this, the tree tests the genetic makeup of the pollen and, if it matches its own, blocks the tube, which then dries up. Only foreign genes, that is to say, genes that promise future success, are allowed entry to form seeds and fruit. How does the bird cherry distinguish between “mine” and “yours”? We don’t know exactly. What we do know is that the genes must be activated, and they must pass the tree’s test. You could say, the tree can “feel” them. You might say that we, too, experience the physical act of love as more than just the secretions of neurotransmitters that activate our bodies’ secrets, though what mating feels like for trees is something that will remain in the realm of speculation for a long time to come.

Some species have a particularly effective way of avoiding inbreeding: each individual has only one gender. For example, there are both male and female willows, which means they can never mate with themselves but only procreate with other willows. But willows, it must be said, aren’t true forest trees. They colonize pioneer sites, areas that are not yet forested. Because there are thousands of wild flowers and shrubs blooming in such places, and they attract bees, willows, like bird cherries, also rely on insects for pollination. But here a problem arises. The bees must first fly to the male willows, collect pollen there, and then transport the pollen to the female trees. If it was the other way around, there would be no fertilization. How does a tree manage this if both sexes have to bloom at the same time? Scientists have discovered that all willows secrete an alluring scent to attract bees. Once the insects arrive in the target area, the willows switch to visual signals. With this in mind, male willows put a lot of effort into their catkins and make them bright yellow. This attracts the bees to them first. Once the bees have had their first meal of sugary nectar, they leave and visit the inconspicuous greenish flowers of the female trees.

Inbreeding as we know it in mammals—that is to say, breeding between populations that are related to one another—is, of course, still possible in all three cases I have mentioned. And here, wind and bees come into play equally. As both bridge large distances, they ensure that at least some of the trees receive pollen from distant relations, and so the local gene pool is constantly refreshed. However, completely isolated stands of rare species of trees, where only a few trees grow, can lose their genetic diversity. When they do, they weaken and, after a few centuries, they disappear altogether.

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— THE TREE LOTTERY — (#ulink_cea9f0ff-3da6-5f26-9164-452dbcb1922a)

TREES MAINTAIN AN inner balance. They budget their strength carefully, and they must be economical with energy so that they can meet all their needs. They expend some energy growing. They must lengthen their branches and widen the diameter of their trunks to support their increasing weight. They also hold some energy in reserve so that they can react immediately and activate defensive compounds in their leaves and bark if insects or fungi attack. Finally, there is the question of propagation.

Species that blossom every year plan for this Herculean task by carefully calibrating their energy levels. However, species that blossom only every three to five years, such as beeches or oaks, are thrown off kilter by such events. Most of their energy has already been earmarked for other tasks, but they need to produce such enormous numbers of beechnuts and acorns that everything else must now take second place. The battle for the branches begins. There’s not a speck of space for the blossoms, so a corresponding number of leaves must vacate their posts. In the years when the leaves shrivel and fall off, the trees look unusually bare, so it’s no surprise that reports on the condition of forests where the affected trees are growing describe the tree canopy as being in a pitiful state. Because all the trees are going through this process at the same time, to a casual observer the forest looks sick. The forest is not sick, but it is vulnerable. The trees use the last of their energy reserves to produce the mass of blossoms, and to compound the problem, they are left with fewer leaves, so they produce less sugar than they normally do. Furthermore, most of the sugar they do produce is converted into oil and starch in the seeds, so there is hardly any left over for the trees’ daily needs and winter stores—to say nothing of the energy reserves intended to defend against sickness.

Many insects have been waiting for just this moment. For example, the beech leaf-mining weevil lays millions upon millions of eggs in the fresh, defenseless foliage. Here, the tiny larvae eat away flat tunnels between the top and bottom surfaces of the leaves, leaving brown papery trails as they feed. The adult beetles chew holes in the leaves until they look as though a hunter has blasted them with a shotgun. Some years, the infestations are so severe that, from afar, the beeches look more brown than green. Normally, the trees would fight back by making the insects’ meal extremely bitter—literally. But after producing all those blossoms, they are out of steam, and so this season they must endure the attack without responding.

Healthy trees get over this, especially because afterward there will be a number of years for them to recover. However, if a beech tree is already sickly before the attack, then such an infestation can sound its death knell. Even if the tree knew this, it would not produce fewer blossoms. We know from times of high forest mortality that it is usually the particularly battered individuals that burst into bloom. If they die, their genetic legacy might disappear, and so they probably want to reproduce right away to make sure it continues. Something similar happens after unusually hot summers. After extreme droughts bring many trees to the brink of death, they all bloom together the following year, which goes to show that large quantities of beechnuts and acorns don’t indicate that the next winter will be particularly harsh. As blossoms are set the summer before, the abundance of fruit reflects what happened the previous year and has nothing to do with what will happen in the future. The effect of weak defenses shows up again in the fall, this time in the seeds. The beech leaf miners bore into fruit buds as well as leaves. Consequently, although beechnuts form, they remain empty, and therefore, they are barren and worthless.

When a seed falls from a tree, each species has its own strategy as to when the seed sprouts. So how does that work? If a seed lands on soft, damp soil, it has no choice but to sprout as soon as it is warmed by the sun in the spring, for every day the embryonic tree lies around on the ground unprotected it is in great danger—come spring, wild boar and deer are always hungry. And this is just what the large seeds of species such as beeches and oaks do. The next generation emerges from beechnuts and acorns as quickly as it can so that it is less attractive to herbivores. And because this is their one and only plan, the seeds don’t have long-term defense strategies against fungi and bacteria. The seeds slough off their protective casings, which lie around on the forest floor through the summer and rot away by the following spring.

Many other species, however, give their seeds the opportunity to wait one or more years until they start to grow. Of course, this means a higher risk of being eaten, but it also offers substantial advantages. For example, seedlings can die of thirst in a dry spring, and when that happens, all the energy put into the next generation is wasted. Or when a deer has its territory and main feeding ground in exactly the spot where the seed lands, it takes no more than a few days for the seedling’s tasty new leaves to end up in the deer’s stomach. In contrast, if some of the seeds do not germinate for a year or more, then the risk is spread out so that at least a few little trees are likely to make it.

Bird cherries adopt this strategy: their seeds can lie dormant for up to five years, waiting for the right time to sprout. This is a good strategy for this typical pioneer species. Beechnuts and acorns always fall under their mother trees, so the seedlings grow in a predictable, pleasant forest microclimate, but little bird cherries can end up anywhere. Birds that gobble the tart fruit make random deposits of seeds wrapped in their own little packages of fertilizer. If a package lands out in the open in a year when the weather is extreme, temperatures will be hotter and water supplies scarcer than in the cool, damp shadows of a mature forest. Then it’s advantageous if at least some of the stowaways wait a few years before waking to their new life.

And after they wake? What are the youngsters’ chances of growing up and producing another generation? That’s a relatively easy calculation to make. Statistically speaking, each tree raises exactly one adult offspring to take its place. For those that don’t make it, seeds may germinate and young seedlings may vegetate for a few years, or even for a few decades, in the shadows, but sooner or later, they run out of steam. They are not alone. Dozens of offspring from other years also stand at their mothers’ feet, and by and by, most give up and return to humus. Eventually, a few of the lucky ones that have been carried to open spaces on the forest floor by the wind or by animals get a good start in life and grow to adulthood.

Back to the odds. Every five years, a beech tree produces at least thirty thousand beechnuts (thanks to climate change, it now does this as often as every two or three years, but we’ll put that aside for the moment). It is sexually mature at about 80 to 150 years of age, depending on how much light it gets where it’s growing. Assuming it grows to be 400 years old, it can fruit at least sixty times and produce a total of about 1.8 million beechnuts. From these, exactly one will develop into a full-grown tree—and in forest terms, that is a high rate of success, similar to winning the lottery. All the other hopeful embryos are either eaten by animals or broken down into humus by fungi or bacteria.

Using the same formula, let’s calculate the odds that await tree offspring in the least favorable circumstances. Let’s consider the poplar. The mother trees each produce up to 54 million seeds—every year.

How their little ones would love to change places with the beech tree youngsters. For until the old ones hand over the reins to the next generation, they produce more than a billion seeds. Wrapped in their fluffy packaging, these seeds strike out via airmail in search of new pastures. But even for them, based purely on statistics, there can be only one winner.

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— SLOWLY DOES IT — (#ulink_4595f11f-0809-52ef-9c79-692ded795041)

FOR A LONG time, even I did not know how slowly trees grew. In the forest I manage, there are beeches that are between 3 and 7 feet tall. In the past, I would have estimated them to be ten years old at most. But when I began to investigate mysteries outside the realm of commercial forestry, I took a closer look.

An easy way to estimate the age of a young beech tree is to count the small nodes on its branches. These nodes are tiny swellings that look like a bunch of fine wrinkles. They form every year underneath the buds, and when these grow the following spring and the branch gets longer, the nodes remain behind. Every year, the same thing happens, and so the number of nodes corresponds with the age of the tree. When the branch gets thicker than about a tenth of an inch, the nodes disappear into the expanding bark.

When I examined one of my young beech trees, it turned out that a single 8-inch-long twig already had twenty-five of these swellings. I could find no other indicator of the tree’s age on its tiny trunk, which was no more than a third of an inch in diameter, but when I carefully extrapolated the age of the tree from the age of the branch, I discovered that the tree must have been at least eighty years old, maybe more. That seemed unbelievable at the time, until I continued my investigations into ancient forests. Now I know: it is absolutely normal.

Young trees are so keen on growing quickly that it would be no problem at all for them to grow about 18 inches taller per season. Unfortunately for them, their own mothers do not approve of rapid growth. They shade their offspring with their enormous crowns, and the crowns of all the mature trees close up to form a thick canopy over the forest floor. This canopy lets only 3 percent of available sunlight reach the ground and, therefore, their children’s leaves. Three percent—that’s practically nothing. With that amount of sunlight, a tree can photosynthesize just enough to keep its own body from dying. There’s nothing left to fuel a decent drive upward or even a thicker trunk. And rebellion against this strict upbringing is impossible, because there’s no energy to sustain it. Upbringing? you ask. Yes, I am indeed talking about a pedagogical method that ensures the well-being of the little ones. And I didn’t just come up with the term out of the blue—it’s been used by generations of foresters to refer to this kind of behavior.

The method used in this upbringing is light deprivation. But what purpose does this restriction serve? Don’t parents want their offspring to become independent as quickly as possible? Trees, at least, would answer this question with a resounding no, and recent science backs them up. Scientists have determined that slow growth when the tree is young is a prerequisite if a tree is to live to a ripe old age. As people, we easily lose sight of what is truly old for a tree, because modern forestry targets a maximum age of 80 to 120 years before plantation trees are cut down and turned into cash.

Under natural conditions, trees that age are no thicker than a pencil and no taller than a person. Thanks to slow growth, their inner woody cells are tiny and contain almost no air. That makes the trees flexible and resistant to breaking in storms. Even more important is their heightened resistance to fungi, which have difficulty spreading through the tough little trunks. Injuries are no big deal for such trees, either, because they can easily compartmentalize the wounds—that is to say, close them up by growing bark over them—before any decay occurs.

A good upbringing is necessary for a long life, but sometimes the patience of the young trees is sorely tested. As I mentioned in chapter 5 (#u581ebb9b-da21-513c-92e0-16973f664c8a), “Tree Lottery,” acorns and beechnuts fall at the feet of large “mother trees.” Dr. Suzanne Simard, who helped discover maternal instincts in trees, describes mother trees as dominant trees widely linked to other trees in the forest through their fungal–root connections. These trees pass their legacy on to the next generation and exert their influence in the upbringing of the youngsters.

“My” small beech trees, which have by now been waiting for at least eighty years, are standing under mother trees that are about two hundred years old—the equivalent of forty-year-olds in human terms. The stunted trees can probably expect another two hundred years of twiddling their thumbs before it is finally their turn. The wait time is, however, made bearable. Their mothers are in contact with them through their root systems, and they pass along sugar and other nutrients. You might even say they are nursing their babies.

You can observe for yourself whether young trees are playing the waiting game or putting on a growth spurt. Take a look at the branches of a small silver fir or beech. If the tree is obviously wider than it is tall, then the young tree is in waiting mode. The light it is getting is not sufficient to create the energy it needs to grow a taller trunk, and therefore, the youngster is trying to catch the few leftover rays of sunlight as efficiently as possible. To do this, it lengthens its branches out sideways and grows special ultra-sensitive leaves or needles that are adapted to shade. Often you can’t even make out the main shoot on trees like these; they resemble flat-topped bonsai.

One day, it’s finally time. The mother tree reaches the end of her life or becomes ill. The showdown might take place during a summer storm. As torrents of rain pour down, the brittle trunk can no longer support the weight of several tons of crown, and it shatters. As the tree hits the ground, it snaps a couple of waiting seedlings. The gap that has opened up in the canopy gives the remaining members of the kindergarten the green light, and they can begin photosynthesizing to their hearts’ content. Now their metabolism gets into gear, and the trees grow sturdier leaves and needles that can withstand and metabolize bright light.

This stage lasts between one and three years. Once it is over, it’s time to get a move on. All the youngsters want to grow now, and only those that go for it and grow straight as an arrow toward the sky are still in the race. The cards are stacked against those free spirits who think they can meander right or left as the mood takes them and dawdle before they stretch upward. Overtaken by their comrades, they find themselves in the shadows once again. The difference is that it is even darker under the leaves of their cohort that has pulled ahead than it was under their mothers. The teenagers use up the greater part of what weak light remains; the stragglers give up the ghost and become humus once again.

Further dangers are lurking on the way to the top. As soon as the bright sunlight increases the rate of photosynthesis and stimulates growth, the buds of those who have shot up receive more sugar. While they were waiting in the wings, their buds were tough, bitter pills, but now they are sweet, tasty treats—at least as far as the deer are concerned. Because of this, some of the young trees fall victim to these herbivores, ensuring the deers’ survival over the coming winter, thanks to the additional calories. But as the crowd of trees is enormous, there are still plenty that keep on growing.

Wherever there is suddenly more light, flowering plants also try their luck, including honeysuckle. Using its tendrils, it makes its way up around the little trunks, always twining in a clockwise direction. By coiling itself around the trunk, it can keep up with the growth of the young tree and its flowers can bask in the sun. However, as the years progress, the coiling vine cuts into the expanding bark and slowly strangles the little tree. Now it is a question of timing: Will the canopy formed by the old trees close soon and plunge the little tree into darkness once again? If it does, the honeysuckle will wither away, leaving only scars. But if there is plenty of light for a while longer, perhaps because the dying mother tree was particularly large and so left a correspondingly large gap, then the young tree in the honeysuckle’s embrace can be smothered. Its untimely end, though unfortunate for the tree, brings us some pleasure when we craft its bizarrely twisted wood into walking sticks.

The young trees that overcome all obstacles and continue to grow beautifully tall and slender will, however, have their patience tested yet again before another twenty years have passed. For this is how long it takes for the dead mother’s neighbors to grow their branches out into the gap she left when she fell. They take advantage of the opportunity to build out their crowns and gain a little additional space for photosynthesis in their old age. Once the upper story grows over, it is dark once again down below. The young beeches, firs, and pines that have put the first half of their journey behind them must now wait once again until one of these large neighbors throws in the towel. That can take many decades, but even though it takes time, in this particular arena, the die has already been cast. All the trees that have made it as far as the middle story are no longer threatened by competitors. They are now the crown princes and princesses who, at the next opportunity, will finally be allowed to grow up.

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— FOREST ETIQUETTE — (#ulink_e78a5391-1ba4-5ebf-a007-9125f2351d24)

IN THE FOREST, there are unwritten guidelines for tree etiquette. These guidelines lay down the proper appearance for upright members of ancient forests and acceptable forms of behavior. This is what a mature, well-behaved deciduous tree looks like. It has a ramrod-straight trunk with a regular, orderly arrangement of wood fibers. The roots stretch out evenly in all directions and reach down into the earth under the tree. In its youth, the tree had narrow branches extending sideways from its trunk. They died back a long time ago, and the tree sealed them off with fresh bark and new wood so that what you see now is a long, smooth column. Only when you get to the top do you see a symmetrical crown formed of strong branches angling upward like arms raised to heaven. An ideally formed tree such as this can grow to be very old. Similar rules hold for conifers, except that the topmost branches should be horizontal or bent slightly downward.

And what is the point of all this? Deep down inside, do trees secretly appreciate beauty? Unfortunately, I cannot say, but what I can tell you is that there is a good reason for this ideal appearance: stability. The large crowns of mature trees are exposed to turbulent winds, torrential rains, and heavy loads of snow. The tree must cushion the impact of these forces, which travel down the trunk to the roots. The roots must hold out under the onslaught so that the tree doesn’t topple over. To avoid this, the roots cling to the earth and to rocks. The redirected power of a windstorm can tear at the base of the trunk with a force equivalent to a weight of 220 tons.

If there is a weak spot anywhere in the tree, it will crack. In the worst-case scenario, the trunk breaks off completely and the whole crown tumbles down. Evenly formed trees absorb the shock of buffeting forces, using their shape to direct and divide these forces evenly throughout their structure.

Trees that don’t follow the etiquette manual find themselves in trouble. For example, if a trunk is curved, it has difficulties even when it is just standing there. The enormous weight of the crown is not evenly divided over the diameter of the trunk but weighs more heavily on the wood on one side. To prevent the trunk from giving way, the tree must reinforce the wood in this area. This reinforcement shows up as particularly dark areas in the growth rings, which indicate places where the tree has laid down less air and more wood.

Forked trees are even more precarious. In forked trees, at a certain point, two main shoots form, and they continue to grow alongside each other. Each side of the fork creates its own crown, so in a heavy wind, both sides sway back and forth in different directions, putting a great strain on the trunk where the two parted company. If this transition point is in the shape of a tuning fork or U, then usually nothing happens. Woe betide the tree, however, that has a fork in the shape of a V, with the two sides joining at a narrow angle. The fork always breaks at its narrowest point, where the two sides diverge. Because the break causes the tree distress, it tries to form thick bulges of wood to prevent further damage. Usually, however, this tactic doesn’t work, and bacteria-blackened liquid constantly bleeds from the wound. To make matters worse, the place where one side of the fork broke off gathers water, which penetrates the tear in the bark and causes rot. Sooner or later, a forked tree usually breaks apart, leaving the more stable half standing. This half-tree survives for a few more decades but not much longer. The large gaping wound never heals, and fungi begin to devour the tree slowly from the inside out.

Some trees appear to have chosen the banana as a model for their trunks. The lower part sticks out at an angle, and then the trunk seems to have taken a while to orient itself vertically. Trees like this are completely ignoring the manual, but they don’t seem to be alone. Often whole sections of a forest are shaped this way. Are the rules of Nature being set aside here? Not at all. It is Nature herself that forces the trees to adopt such growth patterns.

Take, for example, trees on high mountain slopes just below the tree line. In winter, the snow frequently lies many feet deep, and it is often on the move. And not just in avalanches. Even when it is at rest, snow is sliding at a glacial pace down toward the valleys, even though we can’t detect the movement with our eyes. And while the snow is doing that, it’s bending trees—the young ones, at least. That’s not the end of the world for the smallest among them. They just spring back up again without any ill effects after the snow has melted. However, the trunks of half-grown trees already 10 feet or so tall are damaged. In the most severe cases, the trunk breaks. If it doesn’t break, it remains at an angle. From this position, the tree tries to get back to vertical. And because a tree grows only from its tip, the lower part remains crooked. The following winter, the tree is once more pressed out of alignment. Next year’s growth points vertically once again. If this game continues for a number of years, gradually you get a tree that is bent into the shape of a saber, or curved sword. It is only with increasing age that the trunk thickens and becomes solid enough that a normal amount of snow can no longer wreak havoc. The lower “saber” keeps its shape, while the upper part of the trunk, left undisturbed, is nice and straight like a normal tree.

Something similar can happen to trees even in the absence of snow, though also on hillsides. In these cases, it is sometimes the ground itself that is sliding extremely slowly down to the valley over the course of many years, often at a rate of no more than an inch or two a year. When this happens, the trees slip slowly along with the ground and tilt over while they continue to grow vertically. You can see extreme cases of this in Alaska and Siberia, where climate change is causing the permafrost to thaw. Trees are losing their footing and being thrown completely off balance in the mushy subsoil. And because every individual tree is tipped in a different direction, the forest looks like a group of drunks staggering around. Accordingly, scientists call these “drunken forests.”

At the edge of the forest, the rules for straight trunk growth are not quite so strict. Here, light comes in from the side, from a meadow or a lake—places where trees just don’t grow. Smaller trees can get out from under larger ones by growing in the direction of the open area. Deciduous trees, in particular, take advantage of this. If they allow their main shoot to grow almost horizontally, they can increase the size of their crowns by up to 30 feet, thanks to their radically angled trunks. Of course, the trees then risk snapping off, especially after a heavy snowfall, when the laws of physics come into play and the lever principle exacts its tribute. Still, a shorter life-span with enough light for procreation is better than no life at all.

Whereas most deciduous trees leap at chances to grab more light, most conifers stubbornly refuse. They vow to grow straight or not at all. And off they go, always opposing gravity, directly up in a vertical direction so that the trunk is perfectly formed and stable. Lateral branches encountering light at the forest’s edge are permitted to put on noticeable girth, but that’s it. Only the pine has the cheek to greedily redirect its crown toward the light. No wonder the pine is the conifer with the highest rate of breakage because of snow.

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— TREE SCHOOL — (#ulink_24c06e47-1ad5-544c-9a3e-4628c44f7d3f)

THIRST IS HARDER for trees to endure than hunger, because they can satisfy their hunger whenever they want. Like a baker who always has enough bread, a tree can satisfy a rumbling stomach right away using photosynthesis. But even the best baker cannot bake without water, and the same goes for a tree: without moisture, food production stops.