1 . Trees are “social creature” that communicate with each other in cooperative ways that hold lessons for humans, too, ecologist Suzanne Simard says. Simard grew up in Canadian forests as a child of loggers before becoming an ecologist. She's now a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia.
Trees are linked to neighboring trees by a network of fungi below the surface of the earth that resembles the nervous networks in the brain, she explains. In one study, Simard watched as a Douglas fir tree that had been injured by insects appeared to send chemical warning signals to a pine nearby. The pine tree then produced defense enzymes to protect against the insect.
“This was a breakthrough,” Simard says. The trees were sharing “information that actually is important to the health of the whole forest.”
In addition to warning each other of danger, Simard says that trees have been known to share nutrients at critical times to keep each other healthy. She says the trees in a forest are often linked to each other via an older tree she calls a “mother” or “hub” tree.
“In connecting with all the trees of different ages, the mother trees can actually ease the growth of these young trees,” she says. “The young trees will link into the network of the old trees and benefit from that huge resource capacity. And the old trees would also pass a little bit of carbon and nutrients and water to the young trees, at crucial times in their lives, that actually help them survive.”
The study of trees took on a new resonance for Simard when she suffered from breast cancer. During her treatment, she learned that one of the medicines she relied on was actually obtained from what some trees produce for their own mutual defense. She explains her research on cooperation in the forest, and shares her personal story in the new book Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest.
1. How could a Douglas fir tree send chemical warning signals to a pine nearby?| A．By an underground network of fungi. | B．By the nervous networks in the brain. |
| C．By making cooperation with each other. | D．By holding lessons to it as human beings. |
| A．Simard was-brought up in Canadian forests. | B．She became a professor of forest ecology. |
| C．The pine tree produced defense enzymes. | D．Vital information was shared among trees. |
| A．Her rich knowledge of trees. | B．Her childhood in the forest. |
| C．Her medicine gained from trees. | D．Her research on cooperation. |
| A．communicating cooperatively | B．warning each other of danger |
| C．sharing nutrients at critical times | D．sacrificing mother trees for survival |
