Last week I introduced the technique of ABC-active and CaWa-active.
But can you really recall information in context if you only write down individual words?
Today I make the self-test with an ABC-active which I created eleven months ago.
This one here is an interesting one.
It’s from an article by Smithsonian and it’s about “Do trees talk to each other?”
It’s very, very interesting.
It’s approximately one year ago on the 27th of July 2019, I read through this and
I recorded the ABC-active.
So let’s see what have got here?
Acacia is a type of tree.
And acacia and I think it is the acacias they can become bitter, for instance if they’re
infested by caterpillars.
And the thing is, if a caterpillar infests one acacia tree, that acacia tree can turn
bitter, so that they don’t taste any so well anymore.
But not only this tree, but also the neighbouring trees which have not yet been invaded by caterpillars.
They also produce a chemical that makes them bitter, so that caterpillars and other animals
are less likely to chew on the leaves.
So it seems that these trees are talk talking to one another.
And so we have under D a distress signal.
One plant produces a chemical that is taken up by other plants which then change their
behaviour based on that.
And the distress signal, because, the acacia tree, for instance, is attacked by caterpillars.
Then what do we have here?
Deer.
I think the deer goes with the Douglas fir, if I remember correctly.
And it is a similar story.
And I know we have elm here.
Do we have other trees?
And pine tree.
I don’t know exactly anymore which of them go with which animal.
I can’t remember that, but I can remember that each of those like caterpillar, deer,
we have giraffe, they don’t have any other animals, all of those they’re basically
eating the plants.
And acacia, Douglas fir, elm and pine they’re the plants being eaten and they all send sending
out the distress signal.
Another interesting This is something a distress signal that goes through the air.
Another interesting way of communicating, if you like, goes by directed nutrient flow.
And this one goes through a fungus network in the roots.
And so the trees are able to send nutrients from one tree to another.
So basically, older trees can nourish younger trees which are not yet big enough to get
enough sun light.
Ethylene gas, this is basically an agent which helps It’s a volatile, it’s called a volatile,
that means it’s a chemical compound that can very easily go into a gaseous state and
be carried by the wind.
So they use ethylene gas among other gases, among other chemical compounds to send their
distress signal, for instance.
We already said fungal network that goes with directed nutrient flow that’s how they communicate.
Then they have here feeding.
Yes, via the directed nutrient flow the trees can feed other trees.
Forest stabilisation.
It seems that by this fungal network and by this feeding because more younger trees could
survive than could otherwise survive, that this stabilises the forest.
Otherwise more trees would die and then they would fall and they would need to be replaced
by other ones.
But this stabilises which plants you have in a given forest.
Giraffe we already said.
Hormones.
Yes, this distress signal is caused by hormones.
So as the plant is being chewed on, as it’s being eaten, basically there is some they
don’t have a nervous system as such, but they have something a little bit similar using
hormones.
In our body we also use hormones, but plants using hormones exclusively, to my to the best
of my knowledge.
And that then sends out the ethylene gas as the distress signal.
We also have healing agents.
So basically plants not only communicate with other plants, but certain cells, certain organs
in plants also communicate with one another.
Via the hormones.
And then another type of cell maybe releases a healing agent.
Horse logging.
Horse logging, well this is something to do with using horses instead of sort of machinery
for logging.
And that had a certain impact.
It was better for the plants, I think, but I can’t remember why.
Then we have a hub tree, a hub tree has to do with the directed nutrient flow via the
fungal network.
The hub tree sends out the nutrients.
And we have interspecies alliance because the fungus and the trees via the fungal network,
they enter an alliance.
That means basically Actually the fungus gets something they also get nutrients from the
trees, but the trees also get something because they can send nutrients to other trees.
Into the wind browsing.
Oh this is, this is very interesting.
This is really interesting guys. Into the Wind browsing...
I think It’s what the giraffe does.
When they are chewing on the plants, they’re going from the downwind direction.
So basically the wind comes from that direction, here is the tree, and the herd of giraffes
comes from there.
Because trees like the acacia trees, they’re sending out this distress signal.
But the distress signal is wind born, is air born, is carried by the wind.
So if the giraffes come from the downwind direction, the plants upwind of the plants
they’re chewing on at the moment, can’t be warned, because all the distress signals
goes downwind where the giraffes have already been.
So this is a very clever adaptation.
Leaf nose, that’s basic Oh, you can’t see it, hang on.
Here, leaf nose, this is a very It’s basically the the leaf that can act as noses so to speak
in a sense of a nose, our nose, is used to detect volatile chemicals in the air.
And similarly, the leaves of plants can detect not only take in CO2 which the plants CO2
to which the plants need to do their photosynthesis, but they also take in other chemicals and
they analyse the chemicals and then they can react to the distress signal.
Mother tree, this is similar to hub tree.
Network decoupling.
I can’t actually remember why decoupling.
I mean, network, I think it goes to fungal network.
Decou What is decoupled?
How the network is decoupled from one another, I can’t remember.
Pine, I said before.
Then we have ripping soil.
Yes, ah, now I also know more about the horse logging.
The ripping soil is The horses they don’t damage the soil as much as modern machinery.
And because modern machinery damages the soil much more, they’re ripping the soil,
they’re destroying that fungal network and that means they're doing much more harm to the forest
than horse logging, because they’re not only taking away members from that network,
they’re not just taking some trees offline, but they’re destroying large parts of the network.
So you have sort of a blackout in the network, if you like.
Then we have this one here is called root tip recognition.
This has something to do with the fungal network.
I think it has something to do with that the roots, the tips of the roots, they also act
as sensors, similar to the to the leaves, they can also recognise certain chemicals
and so the roots they grow in a certain direction if there is a certain chemical in this part
of the in this part of the soil.
They will grow preferentially into this rich abundant source of minerals.
Of nutrients.
So the root tips can recognise things.
Which is really cool.
Service fee sugar.
So basically, the service fee sugar goes back to the fungal network and I said before we
have an interspecies alliance, both partners have something of it, and actually what the
fungus gets from this fungal network is, they get sugar.
And, they get sugars from the trees, and this is sort of the service fee, once the tree
pays their sugar, the fungus is hap is happy, if you like this, to send the messages of
the trees.
Then we have sound emission, do trees also emit sounds?
I can’t remember that.
There must be something that Because all of this is about “Do trees talk?”
So they seem to be able to emit sound?
I have to read this again, I can’t remember.
Saliva detection, that’s basically if an animal chews on the plants how does detect
how does the plant detect that it’s being chewed on?
Well, the saliva of the animals has certain chemical compounds.
And the tree can detect this chemical comp yes, these chemical compounds, in the saliva, and,
thus, send out the distress sig distress signal or the healing agents, the bitterness signals
and all of all of that.
Inside the tree and also towards other trees.
Voltage signalling.
I only remember that animals use voltage signalling.
I suppose their will be some voltage signalling in plants.
Not via neurons, not via nervous cells, but what exactly I meant, I can’t remember anymore.
And then wood wide web, this is just a funny way of referring to this fungal network
in analogy to the World Wide Web.
It’s a wood wide web.
It’s a forest wide web.
So yeah, out of, how many have I got, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, basically out of 30 words, I could
not remember 2 of them.
One of them was sound emission, one of them was voltage signalling.
Ah, three of them.
And the network decoupling.
I can’t remember what exactly I meant by those three.
Horse logging I remembered later when I read ripping soil what that means.
27 words or 90% I can remember.
And I remember what this article was about, what it was talking about, even some details,
although I haven’t looked at this article in 11 months.
That’s pretty amazing actually!
Well, there you have it.
It is really possible to recall a lot of context information, even though I’ve just written
down individual words and played a little bit with the words later.
If you’re interested in the original article, you’ll find a link in the description.
And as always, if you found the video useful, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe for
more videos on how to think deeply and creatively.
And I’ll see you in my next video.