Forests: Holobionts that Dominate the Land's Ecosystem

 

The beech ("Fagus") forest of Abbadia San Salvatore, in Tuscany, Italy. A living holobiont in all its splendor. (photo by the author).

Not many people, today, have a chance to see a fully grown, mature forest. Of course, trees are common even in cities, and there are many places where trees grow together in sufficient numbers that they can be termed "woods." But mature forests have become rare in our urbanized environment. 

One such mature forest survives on the slopes of the Amiata mountain (Monte Amiata), an ancient volcano located about at the center of Tuscany, Italy. Not really a "pristine" forest, but managed by humans with a sufficiently light hand so that it can grow according to its tendency of forming a "monodominant" forest. It is composed nearly completely of a single species of trees: the Fagus sylvatica the European beech. In the photo, below, you can see the east side of the Amiata mountain seen from the valley. 

Our remote ancestors were, most likely, savanna creatures: they weren't used to forests. We may only imagine the awe they felt when they migrated north, from their original African home, to walk in the great forests of Eurasia, by then emerging out of the last ice age. It is a sensation that we can still feel, today. Not many of us are acquainted with the subtleties of a forest ecosystem, but we can recognize that we are looking at something gigantic: an enormous creature that dominates the land. 

A forest is much more than just trees -- it is the true embodiment of the concept of "holobiont." (at least in the version called "extended holobiont" by Castell et al.).  It is an assembly of different creatures that live in symbiosis with each other. The beauty of the concept is that the creatures that form a holobiont are not altruistic. Individual trees don't care about the forest -- they probably don't even know that such a thing as a "forest" exists. They all act for their own survival. But the result is the optimal functioning of the whole system: a forest is a holobiont is a forest.

It has been only in recent times that we have been able to understand part of the intricate network of relations that create the forest holobiont. You may have heard of the "mycorrhiza," the association between tree roots and fungi -- a concept known since the 19th century. It is a typical symbiotic relationship: the plant provides food (carbohydrates) to the fungus, while the fungus provides minerals for the plant. The intricate network of tree roots and fungi has been termed the "Wood Wide Web" since it connects all trees together, exchanging sugars, nitrogen, minerals, and -- probably -- information. 

But trees also get together above ground to support each other. A monodominant forest, such as the beeches of Monte Amiata forms a relatively uniform canopy that provides several advantages. It shades the ground, maintaining it humid, and avoiding the growth of competing species. The trees also shield each other from the gusts of wind that may topple an isolated plant. 

The canopy is the interface between the ground and the atmosphere. Trees evaporate enormous amounts of water in a process called "evapotranspiration." Trees do not do that to favor other trees -- it is their way to exploit the sun's heat to pull water and nutrients all the way from the roots to the leaves of the crown. Evaporated water is a byproduct of the process and, yet, it is fundamental for the survival of the forest. 

It is a complex story that sees water being transferred from the ground to the atmosphere, where it may condense around the particles of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), also emitted by the trees. The result is the formation of low-height clouds that further shield the ground from solar heat and that will eventually give back the water in the form of rain. 

But it is not just a vertical movement: the condensation of water droplets above the canopy of a forest creates a depression that generates wind. This wind may transport inland humid masses of atmosphere from the oceans, where the water had evaporated. It is the mechanism of the "biotic pump" that guarantees abundant rain whenever forests exist. Cut the forest, and you lose the rain. It is not enough to plant trees to have the rain back. You have to wait for the forest to mature and form a full canopy to trigger the biotic pump. 

So, we have all the reasons to be awed at the sight of a fully grown forest. And we have all the reasons to keep it the way it is. The whole planetary ecosystem depends on healthy forests, and we have only recently learned how important forests are. Yet, we keep cutting and burning them. Is it too late to remedy the damage done? Maybe not, but we'll have to see. 

To learn more

Holobionts: https://theproudholobionts.blogspot.com/2022/08/holobionts-new-paradigm-to-understand.html

About the biotic pump: https://www.bioticregulation.ru/pump/pump.php

About the role of forests on climate: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24551-5, see also https://theproudholobionts.blogspot.com/2022/08/forests-do-they-cool-earth-or-do-they.html

For a more detailed discussion of forests as holobionts: https://theproudholobionts.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-greatest-holobiont-on-earth-old.html

Below: one of the beeches of the Monte Amiata, shown with Ugo Bardi's wife Grazia, and his Grand-Daughter, Aurora

Forests: do they cool Earth, or do they warm it? A comment by Anastassia Makarieva

 

Anastassia Makarieva, giving a talk. Together with Viktor Gorshkov, she developed some fundamental concepts on the functioning of the ecosphere: the "biotic regulation of the environment" and the "biotic pump." Here, with her permission, I reproduce a message that she sent to a discussion forum on these matters. If you are interested in joining the forum, write me at "ugo.bardi(thingette)unifi.it"

by Anastassia Makarieva

Dear colleagues,

thank you very much for these fascinating discussions. I am learning so much from this group, just to mention a couple of more recent things, thanks Svet for reminding us of those important mice studies, thanks Mihail for the note about agroecology in North Korea and thank you, Christine, for sharing your experiences as a farmer. It is indeed a very hard job, I am no farmer but I lived in the wild where you have to care about most things that are vital, and this job leaves little time for doing science, especially in a cold climate. (you can find some photos here). And I am overwhelmed with more things discussed in the group, trying to catch up, and will write later.

Here I thought that I would share my understanding of whether the forests cool or warm the Earth, I did discuss it a few times so sorry if it is a repetition.

In the review article recently quoted by Ugo, as Mara rightly noted, there is nothing controversial or revolutionary. Everybody knows that when a certain part of solar energy is captured by evaporation, the surface gets locally cooler than in the absence of this process. Just because, by energy conservation, a certain part of solar energy, instead of heating the surface, is spent to extract water vapor molecules from the liquid phase by overcoming intermolecular attraction.

But, importantly, this energy remains in the biosphere -- unlike the part of solar radiation that is reflected back to space by a bright surface.

So, whether the Earth as a whole will get cooler or warmer in the presence of evaporation, will depend on how the biosphere dispenses this latent energy.

Take a look at this figure, above. It shows how condensation occurs in the rising air. The latent heat is released in the upper atmosphere and can radiate to space from those upper layers without interacting with greenhouse absorbers (that are mostly concentrated below). This will serve to cool the planet, by effectively making the planetary greenhouse effect smaller. Once again: a certain share of solar energy will leave the Earth with less interaction with the greenhouse absorbers. It is a cooling effect of evaporation.

Importantly, this effect will be stronger if the warm air spends more time in the upper atmosphere. If it descends shortly after condensation, all latent heat becomes sensible and just warms the surface. But if there is a large-scale circulation pattern with the air traveling thousands of kilometers, the effect will be more pronounced. So the biotic pump circulation will make this effect stronger (more than in a local shower). (*)

But, besides this cooling effect, there are warming effects. One of them is the mere presence of more water vapor in the atmosphere over moist surfaces. Since water vapor is a greenhouse substance, its presence over land increases the concentration of greenhouse absorbers. The share of energy leaving without interacting with them increases, but the total number of molecules increases as well. Which effect will win?

Furthermore, more water vapor and convection mean more clouds. And some of the cloud types warm the Earth. Others cool the Earth. Which will prevail?

These arguments show why the message about cooling by forests will never spring up from global climate models. They are not suitable to estimate whether it exists and how strong it might be.

My personal position is that focusing on cooling or warming is strategically harmful to the forest protection case. What natural forests definitely do is that they minimize the fluctuations of the water cycle, heat waves, droughts, and floods. While these extremes are currently officially attributed to CO2 emissions, it is well-known that this attribution suffers from many problems. I would recommend this short video by Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqNHdY90StU on this topic.

So in fact to argue that a particular (LOCAL) heatwave has to do with forest destruction (which is known to severely change LOCAL temperatures) might be much easier and more productive than to argue about the role of forests in global warming or cooling -- where there is no simple argumentation.

So, think how it works now: we have a heatwave, and people are told it is due to CO2 emissions, to cut emissions people use "biofuel" by cutting more forests. With more natural forest loss, the water cycle is further disturbed and we have more heatwaves, which are again attributed to global warming, etc. It is a complex situation.

Anastassia

Holobionts: a new Paradigm to Understand the Role of Humankind in the Ecosystem

You are a holobiont, I am a holobiont, we are all holobionts.

"Holobiont" means, literally, "whole living creature." It is a concept known in biology at least from the 1930s, but that was rediscovered and diffused by Lynn Margulis in the 1990s, to emphasize how life is more than all a question of collaboration. Everything in life is an exchange of matter, energy, or information: holobionts are the building blocks of everything in the ecosystem, and also of human-made systems: families, companies, associations, markets, and more. The concept of holobiont gives us a new paradigm to rebuild our relationship with the ecosystem and with our fellow human beings.

Onward, fellow holobionts!

James Lovelock, 1919-2022. One of the great minds of the twentieth century

The great rainforest holobiont is part of the even greater holobiont we call "Gaia"

James Lovelock left us at 103, after a life dedicated to science. His main contribution was the concept of “Gaia,” which will forever accompany his name.

There are many ways to be a scientist: some are collectors who collect facts as if they were stamps. Others are theorists, who spend their lives building castles in the air that never touch the real world. There are those who spend their lives criticizing, and many who see science as a competition to prove they are better than others.

Lovelock was in another category: he never wrote an equation, he never worried about cheap brawls between scientists, and never even an employee of a university or a research institute. He was a creative, one who was not afraid to build measurement tools using his hands, a characteristic of creatives who often combine manual and mental skills. Lovelock was part of the tradition of the great creative scientists of the past, walking on the same path that Charles Darwin had started tracing with his theory of evolution by natural selection. (like Lovelock, Darwin, never wrote an equation!)

For a scientist, being creative is risky. The creative seeks the perfect blend of data and intuition and does not always succeed. An intuition without data is nonsense, while data without intuition is nothing more than a telephone directory. But Lovelock managed to get the right blend with Gaia.

Like all creatives, from Newton onwards, Lovelock hoisted himself on the shoulders of giants, taking from them what he needed for his synthesis. Lynn Margulis and William Golding are equally responsible for the idea of “Gaia,” in the sense of the terrestrial ecosystem. But it was Lovelock who acted as the spearhead, launching the idea as early as 1972, after studying the data coming from the first probes that had landed on Mars. His basic intuition, that oxygen is the “signature” of the existence of biological life, was right. Then, he expanded this idea to explain how the whole planetary ecosystem self-regulates by a series of feedback mechanisms.

As always happens, also in science original and innovative ideas tend to be attacked with a vehemence that goes beyond the need for proper verification. Lovelock's idea had an undertone of mysticism, of "New Age," of hippies smoking weed, that kind of thing. And, above all, it went directly against the dominant paradigm of the time, that of “neodarwinism” which couldn’t conceive how the creature called “Gaia” could emerge without being in competition with others for the same resources.

You can imagine the controversy that came up. And, even today, officially we must use the term "Gaia hypothesis" to avoid the risk of being mistreated by the defenders of the orthodoxy. And yet, perhaps unexpectedly, Lovelock's idea “Gaia " was never completely discredited, despite the crossfire of critics.

Of course, Lovelock was not always right, and his ideas had to be refined, tuned, and sometimes radically changed. He had to back down from some interpretations that turned out to be too radical: for instance, he argued that an ice age is a perfect condition for Gaia to exist to maximize the ecosystem’s “metabolic rate.” It seems clear, nowadays, that it is not the case. Then, one of the regulation mechanisms he had initially proposed, the “CLAW hypothesis,” based on the role of phytoplankton in generating cloud condensation mechanisms, turned out to be probably wrong or, at least, not relevant. And sometimes his interpretations of Gaia as endowed with a certain volition of hers went a little too far on the side of mysticism.

But these mistakes are not crucial. The point is that the idea of Gaia is fundamental to understanding how it's possible that such a fragile thing as biological life has existed on Earth for at least three billion years. It was not by accident, but by the self-regulating capabilities of the system that allowed it to survive the various catastrophes that hit Earth during this long period. Then, you may call this capability with a different name. It doesn’t matter: "Gaia" remains a fundamental idea for today's science, still a source of new ideas, new insights, and new discoveries.

And I think the idea of Gaia also goes beyond the dry terms that science uses to describe phenomena such as “complex adaptive systems” or “self-regulating feedback systems.” I think that we can say that “something” exists, out there, that’s beyond our capabilities of understanding. If we want to call that “something” Gaia, it is perfectly legitimate. And if we wish to see “her” as a Goddess, it is legitimate, too. Who said that science must always be right? So, we can thank Gaia for having been so kind to James Lovelock, and giving him a long and productive life. May he rest in peace in the arms of the Goddess he created, and who created him.

How sloppy can science reporting be? Einstein never ridiculed Wegener's theory of continental drift

 

Alfred Wegener (1880–1930) -- one of the great minds of the 20th century, the developer of the "Continental Drift" theory that he formulated for the first time in 1912. It was a milestone in understanding how the Earth system works. Nothing of what we know of the great holobiont that's the world's ecosystem would make sense without the movement of the continents that causes a continuous exchange of matter from the mantle to the crust, and back. 

Reading about science can be a confusing experience, where you wade among facts and factoids, and you try to make sense of what you read. Recently, I was dismayed to read that, apparently, "Einstein ridiculed Wegener's theory of Continental Drift" (the one now called "plate tectonics."). 

It was one of those flashing sentences that appear and disappear on social media. I can't find it anymore, but it puzzled me enough that I went to check the Web. And, yes, there is this story that Einstein had criticized, even ridiculed, Wegener for his theory. 

Alfred Wegener and Albert Einstein were two great scientists, both idols of my youth. It would be surprising if Einstein engaged in the kind of feeding frenzy that run-of-the-mill scientists engage in when they group together to defame someone smarter than they are. But it is true that Wegener's ideas went through a barrage of rabid criticism, not unlike the kind that hit the "Limits to Growth" 1972 study. Plenty of this criticism of his theory was politically motivated. Wegener was German and, after WWI, everything German became unpopular in the English-speaking world. A curse that lasted well until the 1960s, when the idea of "Continental Drift" was reconsidered and widely accepted under the name of "Plate Tectonics."

So, did Einstein really fall for the general denigration of Alfred Wegener and his ideas? But what is this idea based on? Let's explore the web a little. In a recent article in "Discovery Magazine," we read that "As late as 1958, a book rejecting continental drift included a foreword by Albert Einstein." But no reference is given, nor what Einstein actually said.

More work with the search engines, and we can find, on a site called "human-stupidity.com,"  a post where a reference is given. The link goes to a post in German from "Der Spiegel" where they say that "Selbst 43 Jahre später unterstützte Albert Einstein Wegeners Kritiker noch mit einem Buchvorwort" and even with my very limited German, I can understand that they don't say anything more than that Einstein wrote a preface of a book that supported Wegener's critics. But even here, no link, no reference.

Back to the search engines and, finally, the mystery is solved. I found (I didn't know) that Einstein gave some important contributions to geodynamics during his career. The story is told in detail in this article by Frias et al., where we can read how Einstein befriended a Geologist named Charles Hapgood, of whom he wrote in 1954 that: 

I frequently receive communications from people who wish to consult me concerning their unpublished ideas. It goes without saying that these ideas are very seldom possessed of scientific validity. The very first communication, however, that I received from Mr. Hapgood electrified me. His idea is original, of great simplicity, and—if it continues to prove itself—of great importance to everything that is related to the history of the earth’s surface. (Einstein, 18th of May 1954, courtesy of the Einstein Archives Online).

And here is the book cover: 

This book can still be found for sale, but it has become a collector's item, and it is atrociously expensive. From the snippets available on the Web, it is clear that Hapgood criticized Wegner, but his ideas were not so different. He did accept that the continents move, but he proposed a different mechanism for their movement. His idea was that continental plates were pushed by a mechanism related to the centrifugal effects of the growth of ice.

And how about Einstein? Nowhere in Albert Einstein's preface we can read a criticism of Wegener's ideas, a point clearly made by Frias et al. in their article. 

And there we are: Einstein remains a hero of mine. He correctly interpreted the way science should be done. Hapgood's work was serious science and it deserved to be taken into consideration. That's what Einstein said. 

In any case, the carelessness of people who write about science is bewildering. They simply rewrite what they read without worrying too much about verifying what they are writing. A similar story is that of the "horse manure catastrophe" where people still keep citing a sentence that was never written. And when you hear people still saying that "The Club of Rome made wrong predictions"............... So it goes.  

 

Oceans and Climate: we need more whales!

Judith Curry provides the link to a 10-year-old paper, still interesting for us

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2009GL041961

The idea is of activating the ocean metabolism by artificially upwelling nutrients from the deeper layers to the surface, which can be metabolized by photosynthetic organisms. It is similar to that of fertilizing the ocean by dumping iron oxide in the water.

The interesting thing is how sensitive is the Earth holobiont to this kind of manipulation. According to the article, artificial upwelling would "be able to sequester atmospheric CO2 at a rate of about 0.9 PgC/yr," which is about a tenth of the current carbon emissions. In itself, it would not change the trend, but it is still a lot, and if it were continued for decades it would make a difference considering the unavoidable decline of fossil fuel production generated by depletion.

But, of course, things like pipes and flap valves could hardly be deployed in the necessary amounts, considering that humans see it as much more important to use their remaining resources to make war on each other. Yet, it is impressive to think that what the pipes are supposed to do used to be done by whales before they were exterminated (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1502549112). So, humans have already modified the Oceans' system in the opposite direction. 

Likely, more whales would cool the planet. And they would produce themselves if just left in peace, no need for huge pipes and pumps!

Return the land to nature!

by Bulat K. Yessekin


The European Commission’s proposal for a Nature Restoration Law is the first continent-wide, comprehensive law of its kind. It is a key element of the EU Biodiversity Strategy, which calls for binding targets to restore degraded ecosystems, in particular those with the most potential to capture and store carbon and to prevent and reduce the impact of natural disasters. Europe’s nature is in alarming decline, with more than 80% of habitats in poor condition. Restoring wetlands, rivers, forests, grasslands, marine ecosystems, and the species they host will help increase biodiversity, secure the things nature does for free, like cleaning our water and air, pollinating crops, and protecting us from floods, limit global warming to 1.5°C, build up Europe’s resilience and strategic autonomy, preventing natural disasters and reducing risks to food security. Draft EU Nature Restoration Law: https://environment.ec.europa.eu/publications/nature-restoration-law_en

Land conversion is one of the biggest threats to biodiversity in the modern world. In two related papers, the amount of unconverted land and the degree of connectivity among landscapes were measured, painting a clear picture of both what needs to be protected and the urgency of this task.

Ambitious conservation efforts are needed to stop the global biodiversity crisis. James R. Allan from the University of Amsterdam estimates the minimum land area to secure important biodiversity areas, ecologically intact areas, and optimal locations for representation of species ranges and ecoregions. «We discover that at least 64 million square kilometers (44% of terrestrial area) would require conservation attention (ranging from protected areas to land-use policies) to meet this goal. More than 1.8 billion people live on these lands, so responses that promote autonomy, self-determination, equity, and sustainable management for safeguarding biodiversity are essential. Spatially explicit land-use scenarios suggest that 1.3 million square kilometers of this land is at risk of being converted for intensive human land uses by 2030, which requires immediate attention. However, a sevenfold difference exists between the amount of habitat converted in optimistic and pessimistic land-use scenarios, highlighting an opportunity to avert this crisis. Appropriate targets in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework to encourage conservation of the identified land would contribute substantially to safeguarding biodiversity» https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abl9127

Similar studies (Viktor Gorshkov​, Anastassia Makarieva,​ et al.) have shown that in order to preserve conditions suitable for life, humanity must return at least 50% of the land to nature:​ ​https://www.bioticregulation.ru/index.php

For more details:

https://environment.ec.europa.eu/publications/nature-restoration-law_en


https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/nature-and-biodiversity/nature-restoration-law_en

Bulat Yessekin is an International expert based in Kazachstan in environment, green economy and sustainable development. He is engaged at present in the Aral Sea Basin program, Balkhash Lake ecosystem management, Ural river transboundary cooperation. https://www.facebook.com/bulat.yessekin/