Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees – What they feel, how they communicate | Discoveries from a secret world” (2015, 272 pp.) became very popular these last few years. (Watch an 18-minute interview with the author on TVO, aired October 24, 2016.) In Part 2 of a series of articles about urban forestry in Tree Care Industry Magazine, John Ball, professor of forestry at South Dakota State University, like Wohlleben, explains in plain English the scientific basis for the claim that trees communicate.
His general point, also set forth in Part 1, is that trees need each other and should be planted close together wherever possible, not 30-40 feet apart.
Two fun reads, grounded in practice:
Part 1: You can take the tree out of the forest, but not the forest out of the tree (TCI Magazine, November 2017), 4 pp., 0.7 MB
Part 2: The Wood Wide Web (TCI Magazine, February 2018), 3 pp., 1.2 MB