## Metadata - Author: [[Peter Wohlleben]] - Full Title: The Hidden Life of Trees - Category: #books ## Highlights - For example, elms and pines call on small parasitic wasps that lay their eggs inside leaf-eating caterpillars.5 As the wasp larvae develop, they devour the larger caterpillars bit by bit from the inside out. Not a nice way to die. The result, however, is that the trees are saved from bothersome pests and can keep growing with no further damage. ([Location 197](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=197)) - In the symbiotic community of the forest, not only trees but also shrubs and grasses—and possibly all plant species—exchange information this way. However, when we step into farm fields, the vegetation becomes very quiet. Thanks to selective breeding, our cultivated plants have, for the most part, lost their ability to communicate above or below ground—you could say they are deaf and dumb—and therefore they are easy prey for insect pests. ([Location 234](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=234)) - The trees, it seems, are equalizing differences between the strong and the weak. Whether they are thick or thin, all members of the same species are using light to produce the same amount of sugar per leaf. This equalization is taking place underground through the roots. There’s obviously a lively exchange going on down there. Whoever has an abundance of sugar hands some over; whoever is running short gets help. Once again, fungi are involved. Their enormous networks act as gigantic redistribution mechanisms. ([Location 277](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=277)) - This is because a tree can be only as strong as the forest that surrounds it. ([Location 291](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=291)) - without bark the tree cannot transport sugar from its leaves to its roots. As the roots starve, they shut down their pumping mechanisms, and because water no longer flows through the trunk up to the crown, the whole tree dries out. ([Location 304](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=304)) - Boar and deer are extremely partial to beechnuts and acorns, both of which help them put on a protective layer of fat for winter. They seek out these nuts because they contain up to 50 percent oil and starch—more than any other food. ([Location 317](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=317)) - “Mast years” is an old term used to describe years when beeches and oaks set seed. In these years of plenty, wild boar can triple their birth rate because they find enough to eat in the forests over the winter. In earlier times, European peasants used the windfall for the wild boar’s tame relatives, domestic pigs, which they herded into the woods. The idea was that the herds of domestic pigs would gorge on the wild nuts and fatten up nicely before they were slaughtered. The year following a mast year, wild boar numbers usually crash because the beeches and oaks are taking a time-out and the forest floor is bare once again. ([Location 323](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=323)) - Upbringing? you ask. Yes, I am indeed talking about a pedagogical method that ensures the well-being of the little ones. ([Location 448](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=448)) - The method used in this upbringing is light deprivation. But what purpose does this restriction serve? Don’t parents want their offspring to become independent as quickly as possible? Trees, at least, would answer this question with a resounding no, and recent science backs them up. Scientists have determined that slow growth when the tree is young is a prerequisite if a tree is to live to a ripe old age. ([Location 450](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=450)) - Fungi are in between animals and plants. Their cell walls are made of chitin—a substance never found in plants—which makes them more like insects. In addition, they cannot photosynthesize and depend on organic connections with other living beings they can feed on. ([Location 631](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=631)) - With the help of mycelium of an appropriate species for each tree—for instance, the oak milkcap and the oak—a tree can greatly increase its functional root surface so that it can suck up considerably more water and nutrients. You find twice the amount of life-giving nitrogen and phosphorus in plants that cooperate with fungal partners than in plants that tap the soil with their roots alone. ([Location 637](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=637)) - And fungi are not exactly dainty in their requirements. They demand up to a third of the tree’s total food production in return for their services. ([Location 648](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=648)) - You can estimate the age of beech forests from quite a distance: the higher the green growth is up the trunk, the older the trees. ([Location 768](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=768)) - And don’t worry about that foam that sometimes forms in these pools after heavy rains. What looks like an environmental disaster is, in fact, the result of humic acids that tiny waterfalls have mixed with air until they turn into froth. These acids come from the decomposition of leaves and dead wood and are extremely beneficial for the ecosystem. ([Location 1250](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=1250)) - Gall midges and wasps are a bit more subtle. Instead of piercing leaves, they reprogram them. To do this, the adults lay their eggs in a beech or oak leaf. The sap-sucking larvae begin to feed, and thanks to chemical compounds in their saliva, the leaf begins to grow into a protective casing or gall. Leaf galls can be pointed (beech) or spherical (oak), but in both cases the young insects inside are protected from predators and can nibble away in peace. When fall comes, the leaf galls fall to the ground together with their occupants, which pupate and then hatch in spring. Particularly in beech trees, there can be massive infestations, but they do very little damage to the tree. ([Location 1312](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=1312)) - A plant that isn’t green doesn’t contain any chlorophyll and, therefore, cannot photosynthesize. ([Location 1377](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=1377)) - In total, a fifth of all animal and plant species—that’s about six thousand of the species we know about—depend on dead wood. ([Location 1502](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=1502)) - if you add a pinch of crushed spruce or pine needles to a drop of water that contains protozoa, in less than a second, the protozoa are dead. In the same paper, Tokin writes that the air in young pine forests is almost germfree, thanks to the phytoncides released by the needles.56 In essence, then, trees disinfect their surroundings. ([Location 1730](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=1730)) - Accordingly, a single tree can extend over many hundreds of square yards of ground—or, in extreme cases, even farther. In Fishlake National Forest, Utah, there is a quaking aspen that has taken thousands of years to cover more than 100 acres and grow more than forty thousand trunks. This organism, which looks like a large forest, has been given the name “Pando” (from the Latin “pandere,” which means to spread).61 You can see something similar in forests and fields in Europe, albeit not on such a grand scale. Once the brush has become sufficiently impenetrable, then a few of the trunks can grow upward undisturbed and develop into large trees in less than twenty years. ([Location 2026](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01C9116AK&location=2026))