Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees

Page numbers in parentheses. Italics are my own questions of the text.

Chapter 14 Notes

Chapter 13 Notes             Chapter 12 Notes         Chapter 11 Notes

Chapter 10 Notes             Chapter 9 Notes           Chapter 8 Notes

Chapter 7 Notes               Chapter 6 Notes           Chapter 5 Notes

Chapters 3 & 4 Notes      Chapter 2 Notes      Foreword, Introductions, and Chapter 1 Notes

Chapter 15 – In The Realm of Darkness

half of the biomass of forest is in the soil (85)

• most life can not be seen by naked eye

• more life forms in a handful of forest soil than people on the planet (86) is that true?

• teaspoonful contains miles of fungal filaments

when soil first created:

extraordinary to consider that soil is something that is formed over time – not something that just exists. i’m even more dismissive of it when I think of it as simply ‘dirt’. dirt feels dead – but soil feels alive and thriving

• geological processes in ice age

• sub zero temps

• glaciers ground down fragments

• created loosely packed substrate

• bacteria fungi and plants died to form humus

• trees moved in thousands of years later

• stabilized soil with root systems

• humus grows deeper

• early stages of bituminous coal

erosion

• forests left undisturbed

• lose only 1 to 14 tons of soil per square mile annually (87)

• soil becomes deeper and richer

• growing conditions constantly improve

animals

• beetle mites, springtails, pseudocentipedes

• first link in food chain

• terrestrial plankton

• countless species waiting to be discovered

beetles (88)

• oribatid mites

• live off leaves and bark fragments, and fungi

weevils

• ‘tiny elephants’

• most species-rich family of insects in the world (89)

• eat small holes in leaves

• plant eggs

• larvae eat their way out

• some species can no longer fly

• can only travel 30 ft per year at best

• only there if undisturbed forest

• forests cleared in middle ages won’t have them

• starve and die out in altered forests

will there ever be old growth forests again (90)

• bavarian forest (national park)

• microscopic organisms can cover long distances

• (by bird)

• if there are more undisturbed forests, they can make a comeback

Lüneberg Heath (91)

• planted oaks 100 years ago

• still gaps in microscopic species

• need preserves of ancient forests

• like Hümmel (92) with mixed use

• burial sites

• restore longleaf pines in southwest usa how so?

• ancient Caledonian Forests