{"id":25136,"date":"2025-04-01T20:31:54","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T20:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25136"},"modified":"2025-04-01T21:24:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T21:24:10","slug":"this-tree-wants-to-be-struck-by-lightning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25136","title":{"rendered":"This Tree Wants to Be Struck by Lightning"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Before a discovery in a Panamanian rainforest, \u201cit seemed impossible that lightning could be a good thing for the trees,\u201d a scientist said.<\/p>\n

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When lightning strikes a tree in the tropics, the whole forest explodes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt their most extreme, it kind of looks like a bomb went off,\u201d said Evan Gora, a forest ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y. Dozens of trees around the one that was struck are electrocuted. Within months, a sizable circle of forest can wither away.<\/p>\n

Somehow, a single survivor stands, seemingly healthier than ever. A new study<\/a> by Dr. Gora, published last week in the journal New Phytologist, reveals that some of the biggest trees in a rainforest don\u2019t just survive lightning strikes. They thrive.<\/p>\n

The rainforest in Panama\u2019s Barro Colorado Nature Monument is the perfect place to study whether some trees are immune to lightning. It\u2019s home to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and one of the most closely studied tropical forests in the world. Dr. Gora set out to study whether individual trees in the forest benefit from being struck by lightning. And if they did, does that help the population of the species survive at a larger scale?<\/p>\n

Early on, he spent much of his time climbing trees, looking for signs of lightning damage. But making critical observations could be painfully inefficient. Dr. Gora would begin climbing one tree, convinced it was the struck trunk, only to get 50 feet up and see he actually wanted to be up the neighboring tree. Honey bees would also swarm Dr. Gora\u2019s eyes and ears.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cYour entire life is just buzzing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s horrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Gora needed a more efficient way to find struck trees, so he and his collaborators developed a method for monitoring lightning strikes and triangulating their electromagnetic signals. The technique led him more quickly to the right tree, which he could assess using a drone.<\/p>\n

From 2014 to 2019, the system captured 94 lightning strikes on trees. Dr. Gora and his team visited sites to see which species had been struck. They were looking for dead trees as well as \u201cflashover points,\u201d where leaves are singed as lightning jumps between trees. From there, the canopy dies back, and the tree eventually dies.<\/p>\n

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Before a discovery in a Panamanian rainforest, \u201cit seemed impossible that lightning could be a good thing for the trees,\u201d a scientist said.When lightning strikes a tree in the tropics, the whole forest explodes.\u201cAt their most extreme, it kind of looks like a bomb went off,\u201d said Evan Gora, a forest ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y. Dozens of trees around the one that was struck are electrocuted. Within months, a sizable circle of forest can wither away.Somehow, a single survivor stands, seemingly healthier than ever. A new study by Dr. Gora, published last week in the journal New Phytologist, reveals that some of the biggest trees in a rainforest don\u2019t just survive lightning strikes. They thrive.The rainforest in Panama\u2019s Barro Colorado Nature Monument is the perfect place to study whether some trees are immune to lightning. It\u2019s home to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and one of the most closely studied tropical forests in the world. Dr. Gora set out to study whether individual trees in the forest benefit from being struck by lightning. And if they did, does that help the population of the species survive at a larger scale?Early on, he spent much of his time climbing trees, looking for signs of lightning damage. But making critical observations could be painfully inefficient. Dr. Gora would begin climbing one tree, convinced it was the struck trunk, only to get 50 feet up and see he actually wanted to be up the neighboring tree. Honey bees would also swarm Dr. Gora\u2019s eyes and ears.\u201cYour entire life is just buzzing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s horrifying.\u201dDr. Gora needed a more efficient way to find struck trees, so he and his collaborators developed a method for monitoring lightning strikes and triangulating their electromagnetic signals. The technique led him more quickly to the right tree, which he could assess using a drone.From 2014 to 2019, the system captured 94 lightning strikes on trees. Dr. Gora and his team visited sites to see which species had been struck. They were looking for dead trees as well as \u201cflashover points,\u201d where leaves are singed as lightning jumps between trees. From there, the canopy dies back, and the tree eventually dies.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25138,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25136"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25139,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25136\/revisions\/25139"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}