I interpret the title as that the tree itself is benefiting from it. Like your example with exercise which causes damage but increases fitness by "over"healing.

I interpret the title as that the tree itself is benefiting from it. Like your example with exercise which causes damage but increases fitness by "over"healing. But that is impacting the training person itself. While in the tree case the tree probably suffers from the lightning strike and also doesn't experience a fitness increase - just the surrounding plants all wither more than the benefiting tree. So, given this line of thinking - I find the title misleading. From that perspective it probably isn't misleading to everybody.