Strange Forest 'Superorganism' Is Keeping This Vampire Tree Alive.

Pedro_P

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The stump in question looks like the last standing wall of a great ruined fortress. Beneath the soil, it’s still alive.
Credit: Sebastian Leuzinger / iScience
▼ In a forest in New Zealand, a vampire clings to life.
Once a mighty kauri tree — a species of conifer that can grow up to 165 feet (50 meters) tall — the low, leafless stump looks like it should be long dead. But, as a new study published today (July 25) in the journal iSciencereminds us, looks are only surface-deep.
Below the soil, the study authors wrote, the stump is part of a forest " superorganism" — a network of intertwined roots sharing resources across a community that could include dozens or hundreds of trees. By grafting its roots onto its neighbors' roots, the kauri stump feeds at night on water and nutrients that other trees have collected  during the day, staying alive thanks to their hard work.
"For the stump, the advantages are obvious — it would be dead without the grafts, because it doesn't have any green tissue of its own," study co-author Sebastian Leuzinger, an associate professor at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand, said in a statement. "But why would the green trees keep their grandpa tree alive on the forest floor while it doesn't seem to provide anything for its host trees?" (▪ ▪ ▪)

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soothsayer

nice . This is informative. Perhaps other forests should also be studied

Rhett_Bassard

soothsayer 26-7-2019 01:09 AM
nice . This is informative. Perhaps other forests should also be studied

Other forests have been studied.

More accurately, a superorganism forest in Utah, USA.
In addition, fellow mycologists might know the

Armillaria ostoyae growth

, e.g. Oregon, USA.

Nature co-operates, Homo sapiens kill regardless.

soothsayer

Thanks. This really got more interesting. Human love for discovery is unceasing!

themaskeditor

This is an interesting article. It could be possible that there could be a community of trees in the forest and together they are helping in keeping this tree alive. It is similar how we look after our elders, friends and relatives.

Long back I had seen a documentary where in the scientist were researching on like trees communicate with each other, they fight as well but all this is difficult to observe visually.

They too are living beings just like us. There are some trees that feel good by music, our touch etc.