Parasitic vines may serve as lightning rods
Parasitic vines may serve as lightning rods
Field campaign in Panama will study whether lianas help trees to survive lightning strikes.
Jyoti Madhusoodanan
02 June 2014
Tropical rainforests in Central and South America are being overrun by lianas, parasitic woody vines that clamber up trees and smother the forest canopy as they reach for sunlight. But the vines may be doing more than infiltrating the ecosystem – they may actually be protecting it.
Some researchers suspect that the vines act like lightning rods, saving trees from damage. Understanding this dynamic could help inform how the rainforests will change in the coming years, especially given the predicted effects of climate change on both lightning and lianas.
In July, a group led by Steve Yanoviak, an ecologist at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, will head to Barro Colorado Island in Panama to begin a two-year study of lianas’ potentially protective role in the environment.
“Nobody has ever thought of lianas as anything but a structural parasite,” says Yanoviak. “But they might have this unforeseen secondary effect of protecting trees against strikes.”
More:
http://www.nature.com/news/parasitic-vines-may-serve-as-lightning-rods-1.15325
= new reply since forum marked as read
A couple of years ago an oak on the farm was hit by lightning. Not only was a piece of wood blown out of the side of the tree, a vine growing up the side of the tree was blown apart. I suspect the wood that came out of the tree was already compromised with the root tendrils of the vine. The piece of wood, 8-10' long and as much as 6" wide was blown about thirty feet away from the tree with large splinters of wood scattered across an area about forty feet in diameter.
About three feet from the base of the tree there was a large hole blown open in the ground - probably where the vine was rooted. A crape myrtle that had been growing there died.
The oak was not saved from death - it hung on for a while but is now dead and shedding bark and branches. Twenty feet away a pine that was not directly struck but which had vines growing up it has died. I am suspicious that the vine actually carrying the charge through the ground to that tree.
Here are some pics:
My husband checking out the damage - you can see some of the splinters.
The black thing on the right side is the fried vine:
