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Plant a Tree, plant a new life

Plant a Tree, plant a new life....

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Low Arctic sea ice extent

February continues streak of record low Arctic sea ice extent

Arctic sea ice extent for February 2016 was 14.22 million square kilometers (5.48 million square miles). The magenta line shows the 1981 to 2010 median extent for that month. The black cross indicates the geographic North Pole. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Arctic sea ice was at a satellite-record low for the second month in a row. The first three weeks of February saw little ice growth, but extent rose during the last week of the month. Arctic sea ice typically reaches its maximum extent for the year in mid to late March.

Arctic sea ice extent for February averaged 14.22 million square kilometers (5.48 million square miles), the lowest February extent in the satellite record. It is 1.16 million square kilometers (448,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 long-term average of 15.4 million square kilometers (5.94 million square miles) and is 200,000 square kilometers (77,000 square miles) below the previous record low for the month recorded in 2005.

The first three weeks of February saw little ice growth, but extent rose during the last week of the month primarily due to growth in the Sea of Okhotsk (180,000 square kilometers or 70,000 square miles) and to a lesser extent in Baffin Bay (35,000 square kilometers or 13,500 square miles). Extent is presently below average in the Barents and Kara seas, as well as the Bering Sea and the East Greenland Sea. Extent decreased in the Barents and East Greenland seas during the month of February. In other regions, such as the Sea of Okhotsk, Baffin Bay, and the Labrador Sea, ice conditions are near average to slightly above average for this time of year. An exception is the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which remains largely ice free.

In the Antarctic, sea ice reached its minimum extent for the year on February 19, averaging 2.6 million square kilometers (1 million square miles). It is the ninth lowest Antarctic sea ice minimum extent in the satellite record.

Monthly February sea ice extent for 1979 to 2016 shows a decline of 3.0 percent per decade. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Do trees communicate with each other?

Surprisingly, the answer is yes.

They might seem like the strong, tall and silent type, but trees actually communicate with each other. Many Forest ecologist, studies a type of fungi that forms underground communication networks between trees.

Big old trees — dubbed 'mother trees' — are hubs in this mycorrhizal fungal network, playing a key role in supporting other trees in the forest, especially their offspring.

"We found that the biggest oldest trees had more connections to other trees than smaller trees. It stands to reason because they have more root systems," 

Fungal networks also boost their host plants' immune systems. That's because, when a fungus colonizes the roots of a plant, it triggers the production of defense-related chemicals. These make later immune system responses quicker and more efficient, a phenomenon called "priming".

Every tree in a 30 by 30-meter forest stand was connected to every other tree, with an estimated 250 to 300 trees being connected together in this single forest stand.

The fungal Internet exemplifies one of the great lessons of ecology: seemingly separate organisms are often connected, and may depend on each other. "Ecologists have known for some time that organisms are more interconnected and interdependent."  The wood wide web seems to be a crucial part of how these connections form.

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