Zombie Tree Kept Alive by 'Superorganism'
RandomFactor writes:
Deep in the North Island Forests of New Zealand, a zombie tree lays dreaming.
Ecologists [and co-equal authors] Sebastian Leuzinger and Martin Bader spotted [an] apparently dead kauri pine tree stump (Agathis australis) [...], but it showed something that dead trees don't have: sap running through it.
Testing of water flows in the stump and its neighbors reveals that the kauri pine tree's neighbors are keeping the foliage free stump alive. But why?
Leuzinger and his colleagues think the tree stump's roots have been grafted together with roots from other trees, something that is known to happen when trees sense they can share resources with the trees around them. These grafts allow trees to form a type of 'superorganism' in a forest, and help groups of trees improve their collective stability.
In this case however
It's not clear yet what the surrounding trees get out of a deal like this. The researchers say one possible[sic] is that the connections were formed when the stump was still a healthy tree, and it's simply not letting go.
Maybe the surrounding trees get to extend their own root networks, and gather more water and nutrients, by keeping the connection to the stump.
The ecologists note that "More research is going to be needed to find out for sure."
Not touched on is what we are all thinking - that the dead tree is in control, slowly and inexorably spreading as the other trees scream in terrified tree speak, a leaf rustle here, a scrape of bark there, crying out for our help in their desperation...but we cannot hear them.
Journal Reference
"Hydraulic Coupling of a Leafless Kauri Tree Remnant to Conspecific Hosts" M.K-F. Bader, S. Leuzinger. iScience, July 25,2019 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2019.05.009
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