[HN Gopher] Getting hit by lightning is good for some tropical t...
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Getting hit by lightning is good for some tropical trees
Author : sohkamyung
Score : 122 points
Date : 2025-03-28 13:52 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.caryinstitute.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.caryinstitute.org)
| snapcaster wrote:
| Really cool, feels like the v1 of the lightning trees from
| Hyperion. Was hoping there was a breakdown of how the trees
| accomplish this. Will be interested to see follow up
| freetonik wrote:
| Clicked on comments to write something about Hyperion, found
| your comment instead :) Cannot recommend that series enough to
| anyone who loves science fiction.
| dachris wrote:
| Yes, highly recommended - beware, it's 4 long books (which is
| a good thing), with 1+2 and 3+4 belonging together. And the
| trees are called Tesla trees ;-)
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| The Tesla Trees was indeed immediately where my mind went, just
| give it a few million evolution iterations! And the article not
| only backs up what the headline indicates - it reads almost as
| a _malevolent_ adaptation, attracting lightning to eliminate
| parasites and competition.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I have a grow tent in the basement with tropical shrubs -
| hibiscus, plumeria, jasmine. Maybe it's time to make a Tesla
| coil...
| cratermoon wrote:
| Similarly, trees like Longleaf pine, Giant sequoia, and Coast
| redwood have adapted to not only tolerate but thrive through
| fire. Some even require fire to reproduce.
| cjs_ac wrote:
| Australian eucalyptus trees also require fire to reproduce. The
| oil in the leaves is there to intensify the fire, destroying
| competing species.
| contingencies wrote:
| Not true. There are many eucalypts. Some benefit from fire.
| Others benefit from cold. Most require neither and some
| probably require different seed release or germination
| stimuli.
|
| A primary evolutionary purpose of the oils seems to be as a
| pathogen resistance measure, being antibacterial, antiviral,
| antifungal.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| Also Xanthorrhoea which is adapted to fire but doesn't require
| it.
| jfarlow wrote:
| Serotiny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serotiny
| contingencies wrote:
| Card carrying member of the Australian Plant Society here!
| Prior to flowering plants ( _Angiospermae_ ; 140MYA) we had
| ferns ( _Polypodiopsida_ ; 360MYA) and _Fungi_ ( >1000MYA).
|
| I suspect a large number of Australian fern species, especially
| those with elevated situations (epiphytes) such as _Asplenium_
| (colloquially "Birds Nest Ferns") and _Platycerium_ (
| "Staghorns" and "Elkhorns") as well as those with substantial
| frond sizes _Todea barbara_ ( "King Fern") or _Pteridium
| esculentum_ ( "Bracken Fern") or tree-like stature _Cyathea_ /
| _Dicksonia_ ( "Tree Ferns") may have evolved partly to benefit
| from fire for spore release and long distance transmission due
| to fire-related updrafts. This could make sense because they
| may usually otherwise be 'trapped' in high moisture locations
| without due to an absence of strong updrafts facilitating
| ascending to higher altitudes yielding potential for longer
| distance transmission. Just as ferns are often the first
| greenery to emerge from winter landscapes in the northern
| hemisphere, ferns are often the first visible greenery to
| return to burned bushland... after moisture.
|
| Based on their age I suspect a large number of fungi probably
| respond to fire, especially subterranean species that are
| likely subject to only partial thermal trauma.
|
| Stepping back from fire to lightning, I similarly suspect
| "getting hit by lightning" and/or consequent canopy opening
| elicits a fungal response which also benefits trees that are
| victim to lightning strike.
| westurner wrote:
| Also re: lightning and living things, from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43044159 :
|
| > _" Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms"
| (2024)_
|
| > _" Gamma rays convert CH4 to complex organic molecules [like
| glycine,], may explain origin of life" (2024)_
| gigatree wrote:
| "If you explained trees to someone who'd never heard of them--
| towers that drink through their feet, turn light into food, and
| whisper through fungal cables--they'd think it's the craziest
| tech ever invented." Add this to the list
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I was surprised to learn that two randomly selected trees are
| not likely to be more closely related than any two other
| randomly selected plants. They're not a family but rather a
| strategy that evolution has rediscovered several times
| separately.
|
| If there is light-powered life on other planets, it has
| probably figured out how to tree also.
| xandrius wrote:
| Do you mean 2 randomly selected trees for the same specie?
|
| Otherwise that statement is not surprising at all.
| shwaj wrote:
| It's somewhat surprising to me. If you take any two furry
| animals, they are more closely related to each other than
| to a lizard.
| i_cannot_hack wrote:
| Not really true. Kiwi birds are very furry (unless you
| define furry as having mammalian hair, which sort of
| defeats the point) and are more related to lizards than
| to mammals.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Right, that was my thinking. Though frequently incorrect,
| it is intuitive that similar things are more closely
| related than dissimilar thing.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Well no, 2 randomly selected trees for the same species are
| quite likely to have a recent common ancestor (contrasted
| with, say, a tree and fish) because they're the same
| species.
|
| I was under the mistaken impression that "tree" was a
| phylogenetic thing. Like, they're all descended from some
| distant great-grandmother-tree or something. The surprising
| thing was that this is not the case, and many separate
| species have all discovered how to tree individually.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Well, I suppose the more striking statement is that you can
| find two trees and two bushes such that there is a
| tree/bush pair that is closer related than the tree/tree
| pair.
|
| Ginkgo biloba (Ginkgo/Maidenhair Tree)
| https://www.vdberk.com/trees/ginkgo-biloba-mascia/
|
| Pinus strobus (White Pine)
| https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=PIST
|
| Ephedra sinica (Chinese Ephedra/Ma Huang)
| https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/135489-Ephedra-sinica
|
| Juniperus horizontalis (Creeping Juniper)
| https://www.gardenia.net/plant/juniperus-horizontalis-
| blue-c...
|
| I think visually the first two look alike and the last two
| look alike. I would phenotypically bucket them together.
| But the reality of genetic relation is different.
| viggity wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| There was a huge revolution in understanding taxonomy when we
| started actually genetically testing various organisms.
| Before then, we had to categorize things based on the fossil
| record and based on similar structures, but it turns out a
| lot of very similar looking things aren't actually more
| related to each other than they are to very dissimilar
| looking things.
|
| I _do_ think there 's an argument to be made that there
| should be a paradigm that describe organisms that are
| functionally the same within an ecosystem but genetically
| quite different other than "convergent evolution."
| heyjamesknight wrote:
| I think the paradigm you're looking for is Plato's Theory
| of the Forms.
|
| Half-joking.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| I just think that while it's scientifically fascinating,
| and great as a fun fact to say "There's no such thing as
| trees actually, they're just related to various other
| plants" and "There's no such thing as fish, actually,
| they're all related to different other species" it's also
| useful to have a word that refers to all tall, woody
| plants or all gilled-vertebrates.
|
| Either way, better Plato than Pliny.
| jacobolus wrote:
| The word "fish" historically meant more or less any
| animal in the sea, which to my understanding included
| whales, seals, sea turtles, shrimp, shellfish, starfish,
| jellyfish, etc.
|
| Phylogenetically, there is also a relevant group, but we
| call them "chordates" instead.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| >"There's no such thing as fish"
|
| fun fact, your average bony fish is more closely related
| to us than it is to a shark
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| That would be interesting, a taxonomy of niches.
| crooked-v wrote:
| For an animal example with pretty specific niches, various
| kinds of tenrec look and behave very similarly to various
| types of hedgehogs and shrews, to the point that they can
| be mistaken for each other at a glance, but are in a
| completely different order of species.
| pseudocomposer wrote:
| And then there's
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| There's a lot we don't know about what life would look like
| on other planets, but there would be trees and there would be
| crabs.
| sfn42 wrote:
| Trees essentially just pump water out of the ground and up to
| their leaves where it evaporates. They're like big natural
| humidifiers.
| cenamus wrote:
| But also through insane negative pressures, otherwise they'd
| only get water up ~10m
| novia wrote:
| > whisper through fungal cables
|
| the wood wide web isn't real
| Metacelsus wrote:
| yup. https://undark.org/2023/05/25/where-the-wood-wide-web-
| narrat...
| damnitbuilds wrote:
| Unfortunately each tree will only be hit once.
|
| Wut?
| SteveNuts wrote:
| I think it's a joke playing off of "lightning never strikes the
| same place twice".
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| Given that there was enough time to make the trees lightning-
| resistant, I'm surprised there isn't a lightning-resistant
| parasitic vine as well!
|
| Fascinating stuff. :)
| yummypaint wrote:
| Given that these trees may be intentionally attracting lightning
| to kill their neighbors, I wonder what the nature of their day-
| to-day interactions are like under the soil. Have other species
| evolved to attack these trees? Do they even know?
| lukan wrote:
| They (likely) don't _know_. They _know_ that if they act as
| lightning rods, their chances of survival are inreased by
| burning parasitic vines. And they _know_ that, because it
| worked.
| matthest wrote:
| Earth has figured out the optimal way to operate over millions
| and millions of years of trial and error.
|
| Our job is to get out of the way.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Earth has figured out a bunch of _good enough_ ways to operate.
| They are by no means always optimal, especially as situations
| change.
|
| We have knee problems because we evolved fairly recently from
| creatures that _didn 't_ walk upright on asphalt all the time.
| ratmice wrote:
| Fairly surprised there was no mention of nitrogen fixation in the
| article.
| raffael_de wrote:
| I think the title is misleading. The lightning strike isn't
| itself good for those trees. It just eliminates competition for
| resources by killing less resilient surrounding plants and trees.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| So... it winds up being good for the trees?
| crazygringo wrote:
| No.
|
| Lightning striking the tree is bad. It damages it, full stop.
|
| Lightning striking the trees _surrounding_ it is good,
| because it kills them, and it gets more resources and grows
| more.
|
| But the two events tend to happen together, because lightning
| hits several trees at once.
|
| So the title is, indeed, incorrect. It's confused about which
| trees are being hit, and which trees are benefiting.
|
| Obviously the best-case scenario for the tree is to have
| lightning strike next door, killing neighboring trees with no
| damage whatsoever to yourself.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Working out damages muscles, but it's still good for you,
| the organism as a whole, as the end result of that process
| is positive.
|
| In this case, it really is _good for the trees_ , to the
| point where they may have evolved to encourage the strikes:
|
| > The trees may have even evolved to act as lightning rods.
|
| > But in 2015, while working in Panama, Gora and his
| colleagues came across a Dipteryx oleifera tree that had
| survived a strike with little damage -- even though the
| jolt had been strong enough to blast a parasitic vine out
| of its crown and kill more than a dozen neighboring trees.
|
| > "Seeing that there are trees that get struck by lightning
| and they're fine was just mind blowing," Gora recalled.
| Over time, the team encountered other D. oleifera trees
| thriving after getting hit, so they decided to take a
| closer look.
|
| > "These data provide the first evidence that some trees
| benefit from being struck by lightning," the authors write.
| Or, as Gora puts it, "It's better off for a Dipteryx
| oleifera tree to be struck than not."
| crazygringo wrote:
| Nope.
|
| "with little damage".
|
| That's damage.
|
| "It's better off for a Dipteryx oleifera tree to be
| struck than not" -- _because its neighbors will be struck
| and killed_. Not because _it_ got struck.
|
| The article presents _zero_ evidence that being struck by
| lightning has _any direct_ beneficial effects. It 's
| _not_ like how muscles grow back stronger. It 's more
| like, a horrible disease maimed you and killed your
| neighbors, but now you can eat better because you're
| raising crops in their backyards. But the disease didn't
| make you healthier!
|
| At least this is according to the facts the article
| presents.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Not all damage is bad.
|
| Callouses on our feet are useful damage. Vining plants
| need branches to break off to promote new vining.
| Deciduous trees drop their leaves. Humpback whales do
| belly flops to dislodge parasites.
|
| Evolving to be more likely to get struck by lightning
| means they're freed of parasitic vines more frequently.
| That's _beneficial damage_.
| crazygringo wrote:
| You're confusing two different kinds of damage.
|
| There is the kind that makes you stronger or more adapted
| -- muscles, callouses. Then there's the kind that's just
| bad. Injuries, the flu, stress. Lightning is the second
| kind. The tree doesn't get stronger. The tree doesn't
| adapt. It just gets damaged.
|
| If someone whacks me on the head so I get concussed, but
| kills a bee in the process about to sting me, are you
| going to say that whacking me on the head was "beneficial
| damage"? That would be crazy. Sure it's helpful that some
| vines get killed. That's something separate from the
| damage caused by the lightning to the tree. The tree is
| still damaged from it, in the bad way.
| jessekv wrote:
| Is sharpening a knife damaging it? It gets a bit
| philosophical I suppose.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| > The trees may have even evolved to act as lightning
| rods.
|
| Scientists: Let's get near these dangerous lightning rod
| trees to study them!
| crooked-v wrote:
| Typical scientist behavior, really.
| raffael_de wrote:
| I interpret the title as that the tree itself is benefiting
| from it. Like your example with exercise which causes damage
| but increases fitness by "over"healing. But that is impacting
| the training person itself. While in the tree case the tree
| probably suffers from the lightning strike and also doesn't
| experience a fitness increase - just the surrounding plants
| all wither more than the benefiting tree. So, given this line
| of thinking - I find the title misleading. From that
| perspective it probably isn't misleading to everybody.
| rocqua wrote:
| It actually helps the tree by killing parasitic vines. Based on
| just the parasites, it could be beneficial to the tree to get
| hit directly compared to only nearby trees dying.
| momojo wrote:
| Reminds me of how (small and regular) forest fires are actually
| healthy for giant sequoias.
|
| > Giant sequoia cones are serotinous, which means that fire on
| the forest floor causes them to dry out, open and release their
| seeds. This adaptation ensures that the tree times the release of
| most of its seeds to coincide with fire, which creates ideal
| conditions for regeneration success. Fire burns off woody debris
| and exposes the soil, it creates an ash layer that returns
| nutrients to the soil and increases sunlight by killing some of
| the competing pines and firs.
|
| https://www.savetheredwoods.org/interactive/giant-sequoia-an...
| nomel wrote:
| These types of plants are pyrophytes [1].
|
| The Eucalyptus is one that _encouraging_ fires with its oily
| leafs.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrophyte
| rocqua wrote:
| Anyone know what makes these trees better able to take the hit?
| Do they insulate their trunks and hope to channel the strike
| through parasitic vines and competing trees? Or do they grow some
| kind of highly conductive guide to easily channel the strike to
| ground?
|
| Neither seems plausible to me. The first perhaps is a bit less
| unlikely... I presume there is a third option that I missed.
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