{"id":5829,"date":"2016-10-11T19:13:36","date_gmt":"2016-10-12T00:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=5829"},"modified":"2016-10-11T22:13:36","modified_gmt":"2016-10-12T03:13:36","slug":"sacrificing-a-few-for-the-grove","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2016\/10\/11\/sacrificing-a-few-for-the-grove\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacrificing a Few For the Grove"},"content":{"rendered":"

In WaPo<\/strong><\/em> Sarah Kaplan reports on the work explaining the impossible ghosts of the forests – albino redwoods<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Redwoods can also clone themselves, further complicating scientists’ understanding of them. Vast rings of related\u00a0plants\u00a0communicate via their\u00a0roots, and during the hard months of\u00a0winter and early spring, they’ll distribute nutrients evenly among themselves. Scientists have spilled dye onto trees at\u00a0one end\u00a0of a grove and traced it through the root network\u00a0all the way to the other side. …<\/p>\n

This collaboration lasts only until summer comes. Then every tree, sprout and branch must fend for itself. Those that can’t photosynthesize enough sugar are cut off from the shared root system and discarded during what’s known as\u00a0the autumn\u00a0\u201cneedle drop.\u201d …<\/p>\n

But [biologist Zane] Moore looks down as he explains how albino redwoods take advantage of their shared root system by siphoning off sugars produced by their healthy neighbors. \u201cA lot of people thought they were parasites,\u201d he said. \u201cThey even called them ‘vampire trees.’ ” …<\/p>\n

Moore sought help from his fellow redwood fans up and down the California coast, soliciting\u00a0clippings\u00a0from both albino trees and their\u00a0healthy hosts.<\/p>\n

He found that the albino needles were saturated with\u00a0what should have been a deadly cocktail of cadmium, copper and nickel. On average, white needles\u00a0contained\u00a0twice as many parts per million of these noxious heavy metals as\u00a0their green counterparts; some had enough metals to kill them ten times over. Moore thinks faulty stomata \u2014 the pores through which plants exhale water \u2014 are responsible: plants that lose liquid\u00a0faster must also drink more, meaning that the albino trees have twice as much metal-laden water running through their systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems like the albino trees are just sucking\u00a0these heavy metals up out of the soil,\u201d Moore said. \u201cThey’re basically poisoning themselves.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So they load up on nutrients from other trees in exchange for uptake of poisonous materials from the soil through which the redwoods’ roots intertwine. Analogous to mycoremediation<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Wow. I wonder if redwoods should be considered a single organism or a collection of organisms.<\/p>\n

(h\/t Melissa Breyer @ Treehugger.com<\/strong><\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In WaPo Sarah Kaplan reports on the work explaining the impossible ghosts of the forests – albino redwoods: Redwoods can also clone themselves, further complicating scientists’ understanding of them. Vast rings of related\u00a0plants\u00a0communicate via their\u00a0roots, and during the hard months of\u00a0winter and early spring, they’ll distribute nutrients evenly among themselves. \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5829"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5832,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5829\/revisions\/5832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}