The Hidden Life of Trees - Peter Wohlleben - Review

Whenever a group of Giraffes feed on the leaves of acacia trees, scientists observe an interesting response, they release toxic substances into their leaves to ward off the feeding animal. An appropriate response to save oneself but the sequence of response doesn’t stop at that point, the respective acacia tree emits a scent called pheromones. It’s meant to alert the neighbouring acacia trees of an upcoming danger in the form of Giraffe and the community soon begins to release toxins in their leaves. It’s a classic example of a synchronised community at work, leading to a flip in our understanding that trees are sentient beings after all. 

When a caterpillar takes a hearty bite of a leaf, the damaged tissues around the leaf sends electrical signals on the negative impact. However, the signals are sent at the rate of a third an inch per minute which establishes the fact that they live on a really slow lane. More aligned towards Satyajit Ray’s mode of unhurried film making rather than Keanu Reeves' racing pace of blockbuster film 'Speed'. Once the signal reaches the roots, defensive compounds are created to fend off the insects. 

Interestingly, the trees are equipped to deal with a problem in more than a single way. By tasting the saliva drops of insects, the trees can determine the harmful pests from the harmless ones. As an alternate approach to defensive mechanisms the trees release a different variant of pheromones to attract beneficial predators that devours the damage inducing pests. A true example of symbiotic relationship that’s braided with completely different species. It’s sad that humans on the other hand cause division amongst ourselves in the pretext of religion, social status, colour, culture, geographic divide and plenty of other divisive metrics. 

Sal trees are labelled as gregarious because it grows in large assemblies of it’s own kind and clearly is noticed as a predominant species in it’s region of presence. However, it’s hard grow an independent Sal tree in your backyard or even an avenue of it’s kind in an apartment community. In fact, when a part of Sal forest was cleared in the northern part of India to construct a wildlife institute, the isolated trees began to fall off and die shortly after the clearance. There are no tree eyes to witness the destruction and it was puzzling to determine Sal trees method to sense it’s environment. The answer lies in the massive underground scale of mycorrhizal network, in modern terms the set up can be defined as the internet of forest ecosystem.

The roots communicated the fact that scores of it’s beloved friends, relatives and neighbours are cut down, leaving them with an overwhelming sense of grief, loss of communication and loneliness. Eventually assigning an early death sentence for themselves, a tree that can live close to 1000 years under ideal conditions decides to pull the plug early. Are we still sticking onto our assumption that the trees are non-sentient beings?

Adaptability is a key attribute towards survival and growth, given the high degree of variability in terms of weather conditions in the short term spiralling towards climate in the longer run, it’s interesting to note how they cope up. Especially in the northern hemisphere that sports shorter summers and longer winters, the frostbite can prove to be a real killer for the green leaves.

The Spruce tree exhibits attributes that are designed to counter the harsh conditions and doesn’t jettison the foliage during winter season. It’s needle shaped leaves are specifically designed for cold weather conditions, the surface area holds less moist to resist itself from frostbite, the branches and leaves are angled so that excess snow falls to the ground, needle shaped leaves retain higher water in comparison to it’s pear shaped counterpart which means that when the roots are unable to extract water due to frozen weather conditions, there are sufficient reserves stored in it's bark and leaves to bank on. Finally, from an immune response standpoint, Spruce trees produce essential oils in it’s bark and leaves to create an antifreeze mechanism. 

As I pause on my review, a realisation dawns on me over the fact that I have covered only the first few chapters of Peter Wohlleben’s findings and observations, the books opens up a lot more attributes about our green friends, whom the mother nature has blessed upon fellow human beings for our own well beings.   

The fulcrum of Peter’s narrative boils down to the fundamental principle or rather demand on why aboriginal forests should be safeguarded from any form of human intervention. As we step into the third decade of the 21st century, there is a dying need to understand that the riches of native forest with its congregation of other species cannot be humanly recreated even with the best of our intention, knowledge or resources. Let’s not act as a father to mother nature when we are a mere foetus. 

Excellent read!