Spruce trees in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains may respond to solar eclipses say an international team of researchers.
Much work has been done on connections between plants, especially over the last twenty years. Reams of papers and many books and documentaries have been produced on the subject, focussing particularly on the ‘Wood Wide Web’. We are told that plants are linked via mycorrhizal fungi, and are communicating, supplying the young and sick with nutrients and warning others of danger from herbivores.
Do trees also share information about impending solar eclipses? Coauthor Professor Monica Gagliano, of the Southern Cross University in Australia, thinks they do and told Cosmos “This could be the Wood Wide Web in Action.”
Or it could just be trees all responding in the same way to the same stimulus.
The researchers were monitoring the ‘electromes’ of spruce trees (Picus albies) in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains. Three healthy trees, 2 about 70-years old, the other 20-years old, and five tree stumps were connected using “custom-built, ruggedised low-power sensors,” says Gagliano.
‘Electrome’ is a neologism, meaning “all the electrical currents in different parts of any living thing.” Humans have electromes, as do plants, in that case those currents are due to the flow of charged particles, ions, across plant cell membranes. Hydrogen (H+), calcium (Ca2+), potassium (K+), chloride (Cl-) and sodium (Na+) all travel and can be measured.
Ion movement is made possible by special proteins, some acting like channels, others like pumps. Changes in electromes have been measured in response to plant diseases, to movement of ‘messages’ between different parts of a plant, activation of photosynthesis and control of nutrient uptake from the roots. Comparisons have also been made with human nerve networks
Measurements were progressing nicely, then a partial solar eclipse briefly plunged the region into darkness. Later analysis revealed a shock: the trees’ electromes had responded to the event.
“The trees anticipated the solar eclipse by changing their bioelectrical behaviour several hours before it happened, which could change sap flow rates, disrupting “vital hydraulic connection between the soil and the atmosphere,” says lead author Professor Alessandro Chiolerio of the Italian Institute of Technology and University of the West of England.
The trees’ electromes were also more synchronised than normal just before and during the eclipse.
Eclipses darken that part of Italy on an 18-year cycle, says Gagliano.
“This study illustrates the anticipatory and synchronized responses we observed are key to understanding how forests communicate and adapt, revealing a new layer of complexity in plant behaviour,” says Gagliano.
Chiolerio says “By applying advanced analytical methods—including complexity measures and quantum field theory, we have uncovered a deeper, previously unrecognised dynamic synchronisation not based on matter exchanges among trees.”
“We now see the forest not as a mere collection of individuals, but as an orchestra of phase correlated plants.”
But why is this happening? Particularly the electrome change before the actual event.
It’s not an additive effect of the two celestial bodies involved. Gravity actually decreases at the beginning and end of a solar eclipse but doesn’t change during totality says Dr Claude Poher of France’s Laboratoire Aurora.
Gagliano puts it down to gravity waves, which NASA confirms are generated during an eclipse.
Are these trees displaying behaviour consistent with Wood Wide Web Theory, or just responding individually to the same stimulus? More work needs to be done.
Gagliano says: “A major contribution is that we actually do have the system that allows us to monitor a number of trees simultaneously. Most of the work done until now, has been at the individual level, one plant at a time, in some cases, two plants.”
“We have basically given a good test run for the methodology, and we know it works, we can get good results”
Their paper was published in Royal Society Open Science.
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