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The Secret Language of Trees — Transcript

by Real Science · 2,499 words · 485 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:03earth is home to around 1 billion trees
0:05that belong to over 60 thousand
0:07species and they live on every continent
0:10but
0:11antarctica and while they may seem
0:14extremely vulnerable to environmental
0:16changes
0:17seeing as they can't get up and leave
0:18when the climate no longer suits them
0:20trees have actually been around for
0:22close to 400 million years
0:25they've survived all four extinction
0:28events that they've been around for
0:30and their ability to break down rocks
0:32create soil
0:33and siphon carbon dioxide from the air
0:35and replace it with oxygen
0:37is what made our planet habitable for
0:39humans
0:40but however grateful foresters poets and
0:43lumberjacks
0:44might be for their presence trees have
0:46always been a bit difficult to
0:47understand
0:48when it comes to finding similarities
0:50between trees and animals
0:52there's not a lot to work with trees are
0:55immobile
0:56don't have blood or lymph or nervous
0:58systems
0:59and only need sunlight and water to
1:01produce their own supply of food
1:03they can live for thousands of years
1:06growing slowly taller and wider
1:08one great base in bristlecone pine is
1:10over 5 000 years old
1:13and even in a forest they seem like
1:15solitary individuals
1:16competing for access to sunlight but
1:19otherwise having no interactions with
1:21their neighbors
1:22but as it turns out there's more to
1:24trees than meets the eye
1:26it was only a matter of looking deeper
1:29down to the roots instead of up to the
1:31canopy
1:32while we might only see and hear the
1:34birds and squirrels filling forests with
1:37noise
1:38there's a vast network of communication
1:40happening right
1:41under our feet trees sharing resources
1:44passing on warnings and passing down
1:46information over the generations
1:49a network of trees talking it allows the
1:52forest to behave as if it's a single
1:55organism
1:56and makes scientists rethink the
1:58evolution of tree
1:59life is it based on competition
2:02or cooperation and by understanding this
2:05network
2:06we might be able to unlock secrets that
2:08will help in our fight against
2:10deforestation and climate change as a
2:12whole
2:16on our planet mutualism is a fundamental
2:19part of many organisms biology
2:22the clownfish that gets protection from
2:24an anemone the anemone that gets
2:26nutrients from the fish
2:27the cleaner ras who eats parasites from
2:30reef fish
2:31the reef fish staying healthy the bees
2:33that gather nectar from flowers while
2:35the pollen stuck to their bodies
2:37pollinates it
2:38but perhaps the most widespread and
2:40ecologically significant symbiosis is
2:43one we can't see
2:45a partnership between soil fungi and
2:47land plants
2:49in 1885 german botanist albert bernard
2:52frank
2:53first proposed the idea that plant roots
2:55and the fungi around them
2:57were working together and like with many
2:59bold scientific assertions he was
3:01basically laughed out of the room
3:03but in the last century nearly all of
3:05frank's major hypotheses have been
3:07unequivocally demonstrated
3:09we now know that plant and fungal
3:12associations
3:13known as mycorrhizal associations are
3:15present in almost
3:16all ecosystems from deserts to tropical
3:19forests
3:21and that about 90 percent of terrestrial
3:23plants
3:24are connected to some form of
3:26mycorrhizal fungi network
3:28mycorrhizae are a fungus which grows in
3:31association with the roots of a plant in
3:33a symbiotic relationship
3:35the most common fungal networks are made
3:37of arbuscular mycorrhiza
3:39which are named for the latin arbiscule
3:42meaning little tree
3:43the threads of this fungi penetrate the
3:46root cells of their host
3:47and form tiny structures inside of them
3:49this is how they interact with the trees
3:51and share resources with them
3:54the other major class of fungi are
3:56ectomycorrhizal fungi
3:58these fungi form a sheath around the
4:00roots of their hosts
4:01and grow between the plant cells to
4:04exchange nutrients
4:05they have a symbiotic relationship with
4:08fewer plants than the arbuscular
4:09mycorrhizae
4:10but their hosts tend to be the most
4:12economically important trees
4:15as they are often the most widespread
4:16trees that we use for timber
4:19while the two classes of fungal networks
4:21belong to very different species
4:23their relationship with the host plants
4:25are pretty similar
4:27the fungi pick up water and nutrients
4:29from the soil
4:30including phosphorus and nitrogen which
4:33are both
4:33important for plant growth and transfer
4:35them to their plant hosts
4:38in return the plants transfer their
4:40fungal friends between
4:41four and twenty percent of their
4:43photosynthate
4:44the sugars they produce by
4:46photosynthesizing this relationship is
4:48the backbone of all
4:50our forests on earth and without it life
4:53on land as we know it may have never
4:55emerged
4:56but in recent decades scientists have
4:59realized it's not just the individual
5:02tree and the fungi that have a
5:03relationship
5:04sharing resources back and forth but
5:06that the trees themselves are connected
5:09by this intricate
5:10vast network
5:15the first inkling that trees might
5:17actually work together
5:18came in a study in the early 1980s
5:22scientists planted pines side by side in
5:24a box
5:25in the lab then inoculated their roots
5:27with the mycorrhizal fungi to establish
5:30an
5:30underground fungal network then they
5:33tagged the photosynthetic sugars
5:35produced by the donor pine with
5:37radioactive carbon
5:38they did this by sealing one plant in a
5:41box with radioactive carbon dioxide
5:43they then allowed the pine to absorb it
5:46and convert it into radioactive sugars
5:48through photosynthesis
5:50then they placed photographic film over
5:52the side of the root box
5:54hoping to see where the radioactive
5:56particles traveled from one plant to the
5:58other
5:58or if they traveled at all when they
6:00developed the film
6:02they saw the path that the charged
6:03particles had taken
6:05and the path was through the mycorrhizal
6:07fungal network
6:08traveling from one tree to the other the
6:11idea that trees may
6:12share resources presented scientists
6:14with an evolutionary paradox
6:17trees have always been known to evolve
6:18by competing
6:20not cooperating trees grow tall to reach
6:22the most sunlight
6:24their roots branch far and wide to suck
6:26up the most
6:27water those that get shaded or reach
6:29less water
6:30often don't survive if trees of the same
6:33species
6:34or even of different species shared
6:36resources
6:37scientists would be forced back to the
6:39drawing board with their understanding
6:41of how
6:41trees have evolved and this idea is what
6:44got researcher suzanne simmered excited
6:47in one of her early experiments she
6:49looked at nutrient exchange between
6:51douglas fir trees and paper birch trees
6:54two different species that grow together
6:56in forests and sometimes compete for
6:58space and light
6:59she planted fur birch and cedar
7:02seedlings in a trio
7:03she labeled the paper birch with the
7:05radioactive isotope carbon 14
7:07and labeled the douglas fir with a
7:09stable isotope carbon 13.
7:11that way she could tell not only if
7:13carbon was moving from birch to fur
7:15but could tell if it was moving from fur
7:17to birch the cedar plants acted as a
7:19control
7:20cedar can't form mycorrhizal networks
7:22with the fur or birch
7:24for the simple reason that it forms
7:25arbuscular mycorrhizae
7:27not ectomycorrhizal like the other two
7:30if
7:30cedar roots acquire any of the labeled
7:32sugars created by fur
7:34or birch it would mean that they had
7:36leaked through the soil
7:37not through the fungal network she then
7:39covered the fur with a shade
7:41tent reducing the amount they were able
7:43to photosynthesize
7:44if the two trees were linked in a
7:46microrizal network
7:48cooperating with one another then the
7:50surplus of photosynthetic sugars from
7:52the birch
7:53should flow into the roots of the fur
7:55and what she found was that the birch
7:57and fir trees
7:58indeed share resources in fact the more
8:01shade the fur was covered by
8:03the more carbon 14 it received from the
8:06birch
8:06and the cedar did not receive either of
8:08the isotopes
8:10further experiments showed that these
8:12two species are also
8:14able to share nitrogen and share
8:16resources in both directions depending
8:18on the season and conditions
8:20the two species exist in an alternate
8:23feedback system
8:24helping each other when the other needs
8:26it allowing them both to remain healthy
8:29but it's not only a matter of sharing
8:30resources
8:32other experiments have looked at the
8:33chemicals trees produce to signal that
8:35they're being damaged by voracious
8:37insects
8:38pathogens or human activity one
8:40experiment looked at tomato plants
8:42all linked up through an arbuscular
8:44mycorrhizal network
8:46when the researchers infested some of
8:48the plants with leaf-chewing
8:49caterpillars
8:50healthy neighbors had activated four
8:52defense-related genes within 6
8:55hours in other words they knew trouble
8:57was coming and they were preparing for
8:59it
9:00as it turns out this preparation helped
9:02them the plants that had time to produce
9:04defensive enzymes against the pests
9:06fared better
9:07and the caterpillars munching on those
9:09second plants didn't grow as large
9:11and there's also evidence that trees of
9:13the same species have some form of kin
9:16recognition
9:16through their fungal networks they can
9:19identify which trees are most closely
9:21related to them
9:22and direct more resources towards those
9:24trees
9:25these experiments show us that trees
9:28aren't solitary individuals
9:29but live in a cooperative harmony with
9:32one another
9:33but if they're so cooperative does this
9:35challenge the prevailing theory that
9:37cooperation is less important than
9:39competition in evolution
9:41it might seem like the law of natural
9:43selection would cause trees to only
9:45compete for resources
9:47but their cooperation isn't purely
9:49selfless
9:50if neighboring trees die gaps open up in
9:53the protective forest canopy
9:55with more sunlight the remaining trees
9:57can carry out more photosynthesis
9:59yes but they're also more vulnerable
10:02more hot sunshine reaches the delicate
10:04forest floor
10:05heating up and drying out the cool damp
10:07evenly regulated microclimate that
10:09forest trees need
10:11winds are able to penetrate the forest
10:13more easily and without neighboring tree
10:15crowns to stabilize against it
10:17the chance of being uprooted increases
10:20reasons like this is why they've evolved
10:23to help their neighbors
10:24trees live longer and reproduce more
10:26often in a healthy
10:28stable forest and if we can understand
10:31this network
10:32we can minimize some of the worst
10:34impacts that humans have
10:35on the planet
10:41in her research on tree connection and
10:43communication suzanne simmered and her
10:45team found that the biggest
10:47oldest trees what are called the mother
10:49trees
10:50are the hubs of these below ground
10:52fungal networks
10:53they are the most connected nodes in the
10:55network of the forest
10:57mother trees share their excess carbon
10:59and nitrogen through the mycorrhizal
11:01network with the understory seedlings
11:04which can increase seedling survival in
11:06a single forest
11:07a mother tree can be connected to
11:09hundreds of other trees
11:11but the problem is this we're great at
11:14clear cutting
11:15and great at clear-cutting mother trees
11:17we always
11:18either log the entire forest or go for
11:21the biggest oldest trees because they're
11:23the most valuable
11:24but if too many of these mother trees
11:26are logged
11:27too many of the nodes removed the forest
11:30as a whole
11:31will start to decline disease can start
11:33to spread
11:35insects start campaigns of destruction
11:38but with this research
11:39hopefully a shift can start to happen
11:42understanding that trees in a forest are
11:43connected underground to their kin and
11:46to their neighbors
11:47could change the way trees are logged
11:49when forests are harvested
11:51the retention of mother trees can
11:53provide resilience
11:54smaller hope trees can be removed
11:56without causing the network to collapse
11:59leaving enough hub trees and enough of
12:01the mother trees within the network
12:03allows for the flow of communication and
12:05the trading of resources to continue
12:07retaining mother trees can also help the
12:09forest regenerate
12:11seeds from the mother tree will sprout
12:13nearby and are able to
12:15quickly tap into the mycorrhizal network
12:17and receive resources from their
12:19community that boost their chances of
12:21survival
12:22additionally experiments have shown that
12:24the retention of old trees
12:26and their extensive networks can reduce
12:28loss of carbon from the ecosystem
12:30both above and below ground researchers
12:33are now investigating how the
12:35connections between mother trees
12:37seedlings and other plants enhance
12:39resilience of the forest community
12:42maintaining the network of connections
12:44between trees in a forest
12:45should help them resist the stress of
12:47climate change and recover more rapidly
12:49when climate-related disturbances do
12:51occur
12:52connected forests are better able to
12:54cope with climate change and be more
12:56productive healthy and diverse
12:59our need for trees is not going away
13:01anytime soon
13:03so learning how to best utilize this
13:05resource for its health and
13:07ours will be imperative in years to come
13:10and now that scientists are starting to
13:12have a better understanding of the
13:14mycorrhizal network
13:15they're looking for ways to utilize it
13:17not just in the forests
13:19but in our agricultural fields the
13:21majority of staple food crops are known
13:23to form relationships with mycorrhizal
13:26fungi
13:26if the soil is in good enough condition
13:28for the fungi to flourish
13:30these fungi could provide crops with
13:32nitrogen and phosphorus
13:34which means the farmers wouldn't be so
13:36reliant on fertilizer
13:38it could be a natural scalable and
13:40elegant solution to chip away at the
13:42damage
13:42agriculture causes on the planet while
13:45absolutely necessary for humanity
13:48agriculture is one of the most damaging
13:51things we do to the planet
13:53a lot needs to change but on a personal
13:56scale it's sometimes hard to feel like
13:57we can make a difference
13:59while we may not be able to change land
14:01use practices in brazil
14:03or influence lobbyists in the u.s the
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14:08in our own lives
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