Therefore, healthy neighboring pines must have been helping their dying comrades by supplying their roots with food, as I’ve described in chapter 1, “Friendships.”

Given this reciprocal relationship between trees and weather, forest ecosystems probably play an important role in slowing down climate change.45

This whipping action damages the crowns of neighboring non-related trees, slaps off their leaves and new growth, and, at least in the short term, restricts their growth.

As they photosynthesize, they produce hydrocarbons, which fuel their growth, and over the course of their lives, they store up to 22 tons of carbon dioxide in their trunks, branches, and root systems.