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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
by crazygringo 2y ago
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 2y agoWorking 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 2y agoNope. "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 2y agoNot 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 2y agoYou'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 2y agoIs sharpening a knife damaging it? It gets a bit philosophical I suppose.
- ASalazarMX 2y ago> 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 2y agoTypical scientist behavior, really.