This tree is more proliferated when a lightning strikes

• DIPGERYX OLEIFERA or Almendro wood tropical species can utilize lightning strikes
• The height of trees and their wide crown attract lightning, thereby increasing their competitive advantage
• The resistance of the tree against lightning strikes helps to destroy trees growing around
• Due
• DIPGERYX OLEIFERA trees are actively attracted to lightning, increasing their reproduction success and competitive advantage

In the journal New Phytologist, it was published in the studywhich summarizes several years of research in the Barro Colorado National Park in Panama, which examined the overall effect of lightning on the forest. The researchers followed the lightning strikes and their effects with the help of a camera system, drones and ground troops. The team expected to find only harmful effects on the trees. However, it soon became clear that Dipteryx Oleibera, also known as Almendro tree, had benefited from shock therapy, which freed it from rival trees and parasitic tendons around it.

As if a bomb exploded

A Lian Lian-covered D. Oleifer is a particularly strong 2019 lightning strike, which has flipped the idea of ​​the relationship between the beneficial effects of wood and lightning, said Evan Gora, a forestecologist at the Milbro (NY) Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies According to Science News. « It looked like a bomb exploded, » the scientist added. The blow was damaged by 115 surrounding trees, half of which were destroyed within two years. In addition, the Lianos covering D. Oleiberra were destroyed. However, the tree found by the lightning strike remained virtually intact, high and healthy, getting rid of its direct competitors.

In order to strengthen the alleged relationship between wood and lightning, Gora and his colleagues document the fate of 93 lightning strucks, including nine d. oleifer specimens. Two years later, all of the D. Oleibera trees were well -flourished, which is in stark contrast to the 56 percent death rate of other species – read on the Cary Institute website.

One of the reasons for this resistance is that the D. Oleibera trees, except for some scorched letters, are not damaged by lightning. However, electric shock kills most of the parasitic lies that grow on them. These tendons are present everywhere in the jungleand the light and nutrients from the big trees.

The connections between the branches of the tendons and the branches of adjacent trees distribute electricity to adjacent trees and thus the lightning They are also damaged. This releases space, light and nutrients for almendro trees. On average, about nine close trees died per lightning strike.

In fact, it seems that growth with D. Oleibera tree is dangerous to neighboring trees, as the results suggest that applemendrops actively attract lightning. They tend to grow higher and their crowns are wider than their neighbors, making them 68 percent more sensitive to lightning. Lightning has been hit twice in five years in D. Oleibera, and researchers estimate that an average tree is on average five times over a 300 -year life. The competitive advantage from such plagues will increase the success of D. Oleibera by 14 times, researchers have stated.

It is not easy to explore the reasons

Connecting the points between the blows and the effects was not easy and needed proper devices and long -term perspective. « A lightning strike takes a few milliseconds, and then it takes months for the trees and the lies to die, so this is not an easy -to -see process unless we are witnessed by lightning strikes, » says Gora.

How D. Oleibera is surviving in the lightning strikesremain unclear. One option is that this tree has a low electrical resistance, which allows you to safely drain the current into the soil without excessive heat development. Another assumption is that the crown structure of the tree directs electricity further from the trunk to the adjacent trees.

« It is very difficult to understand the dynamics of the interaction between trees and lightning. It would be impressive if we could say more about it, but it belongs to physics rather than ecology, » an ecologist Bianca Zoletto, a member of Wageningen University and Research Institute in the Netherlands, said that he has to work with physicists.