Forest System

I saw a fascinating video on Facebook about forest ecology and how there is so much sharing, communicating, interfacing going on beneath the forest floor, unseen and little known.  In the brief video, a forester shared her research.

According to the forester,  the trees are not competing to survive, as Darwin might have suggested,  but in fact are participating in a fascinating below ground community.   A large "mother tree" is networked into all the trees around it, as far as the eye can see.

Trees send down carbon, and just beneath the forest floor fungi connect one plant to another.  There is a constant shuffling of C02 and nitrogen,  sent to where it is needed most, a complex ecology.

But for me, the most fascinating part of forest system is how the trees leave a legacy.   I vividly recall seeing burned forests out west, when we did a National Park tour a decade or so ago.  I was very struck by how the floor of the forest was covered with new growth, despite the destruction of the fire.   I understood then that when the mature trees died,  that let in enough light for the new growth to start a new forest.

But that is not the whole story.  Trees that have been cut down also leave a legacy for the next generation.  The dying trees will move their resources to the living young trees before they go,  passing their legacy from one generation to another.

In many ways,  the tree is like our inverted body, the root system our brains.  Our brain functions very much like a tree root system, sending out complex messages to the limbs and trunk, tending to its life, via veins, arteries, capillaries, not unlike that of the tree and the forest ecosystem.

I am deeply moved to learn of the inter-connected-ness, and the 'consciousness' of the forest.

I've always loved trees,  but I have never seen them in this particular light before.  They,  too, want to share with the community and leave a legacy for the next generation.