#Trees

[expressions-of-nature]

by watarase

[theroadtofairyland]

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Cloven Coven, Bee Merry, Ripe;

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[orofeaiel]

A Good Stump

[geopsych]

Along the fence at sunrise.

That apple tree tho

[metamorphesque]

april 2024

[aestum]

(by fernlichtsicht)

[vangoghcore]

by lundolens

[magictablecloth]

⭒๋࣭ ⭑༻*:·.♡ Pink in Nature ♡ .·:*༺⭒๋࣭ ⭑

[heylsgowt]

[sweetd3lights]

[expressions-of-nature]

by kage-007

[raplele]

[mamafidjar]

march 2022, shot by me

[heartnosekid]

purple glossy starling (lamprotornis purpureus) | adlerstudios on ig

[probablyasocialecologist]

Since 2023, three articles have appeared in scientific journals, with 45 authors in all, arguing that the claims made on behalf of the wood-wide web have far outstripped the evidence. The objections are numerous. Many studies of inter-tree transfers have found only minuscule amounts of sugars shuttling between the trees – “statistically significant” but not necessarily “biologically significant”, one group of authors says – and most don’t rule out the possibility that the resources travelled through the air or soil rather than fungally. Despite Wohlleben’s insistence in Hidden Life that in a mycorrhizally conjoined forest “it is not possible for trees to grow too close to each other”, studies have not generally shown that seedlings ensconced in fungal networks do better when close to older trees (they often do worse). And although many trees are colonised by mycorrhizae, there is debate about whether those mycorrhizae actually form a durable network through which nutrients and signals could pass. Nature, the original venue for Simard’s research, recently ran an explosive news feature by Aisling Irwin on the “groundswell of unease” among ecologists with public discussions of mycorrhizal networks. Irwin reports on the scientists’ general scepticism and on a particular episode that has raised concerns. In her memoirs, Simard makes much of the idea that “mother trees” favour their kin. She describes in detail field research by her graduate student showing that seedlings placed in a fungal network “survived better and were noticeably bigger” if they were genetically related to nearby older trees. But that field study, the critics have noted, actually showed the opposite: the related seedlings were likelier to die, though the trend was not statistically significant. (Simard says that other studies by the student, from the laboratory, support her claims and she’d merely made a narrative choice to describe the results as emanating from the forest. “I do not, and would never, imply anything misleading when presenting research,” she told Irwin.) What makes the recent criticisms of Simard’s work so striking is that some come from her former colleagues and admirers. The first critical review of evidence was by three scientists – Justine Karst, Melanie Jones and Jason Hoeksema – who had all co-authored papers with Simard. The lead author, Karst, has discussed how she was inspired by Simard’s research to become a mycorrhizal ecologist. The second, Melanie Jones, appears in Simard’s memoirs as a hero who supported Simard when few others would. Jones co-authored the 1997 “wood-wide web” article, though she no longer stands fully by it. It was the cultural obsession with intelligent trees, from television shows to airport books, that impelled Karst, Jones and Hoeksema to reconsider their own earlier work. Simard, who is preparing detailed replies, regards these in-the-weeds debates as distracting from the urgent task of protecting forests. She has described the attention that Karst, Jones and Hoeksema’s criticisms have received as “an injustice to the whole world”. Perhaps, but it is exceedingly hard to read the recent reviews of evidence and retain faith in the wood-wide web as settled scientific fact. “Why do we so badly want this to be true?” Karst has asked. Maybe the unrelenting news of global warming and its attendant catastrophes – wildfires, hurricanes – has driven readers for respite toward calmer environmental stories. Or perhaps recent political cruelties have led us to seek reassurance that, in nature, beings are thoughtful and kind. The connective aspect seems important, too, as if trees’ fungal friendships could release us from our phone-checking isolation. Fairly or not, we’ve loaded our aspirations on to the forest: be the tree you want to see in the world.

[...]

A tree, Farmer writes, is “a radically nonhuman thing”, and a large, old tree is especially one. If trees have conceptual value, it is not because their similarity to us elicits our sympathy, but because their difference from us enlarges our horizons. They are the most visible markers on the evolutionary road not taken. Trees stand in for all the photosynthesising, carbon-dioxide breathing, fixed-in-place species that share our world yet have fundamentally different ways of living in it. Contemplating trees should be, above all, an exercise in humility. The mountains and woods, Santayana told his California audience, allow you to “take yourselves simply, humbly, for what you are, and to salute the wild, indifferent, non-censorious infinity of nature”. Perhaps the presence of beings older, larger and more numerous than we are – whether or not they resemble internet users or our mothers – can be a reminder that we are not everything, and that everything is not us. “Let us therefore be frankly human,” Santayana enjoined. And let the trees be trees.

[aestum]

(by manueldietrichphotography)