New study reveals spruce trees communicate during a solar eclipse

A groundbreaking international study has revealed that spruce trees do not merely respond to solar eclipses—they anticipate them. The research, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, demonstrates that these trees synchronize their bioelectrical signals hours before the eclipse, triggering a forest-wide phenomenon.

The study, led by Professor Alessandro Chiolerio of the Italian Institute of Technology and the University of the West of England, and Professor Monica Gagliano from Southern Cross University in Australia, offers new insights into how plants may communicate and coordinate responses in their ecosystems. The findings suggest that older trees show more pronounced early reactions, indicating they may possess a memory of environmental changes built over decades.

“This study illustrates how trees exhibit anticipatory and synchronized responses, key to understanding how forests communicate and adapt to external events,” said Professor Gagliano. “It’s like watching the famous ‘wood wide web’ in action!”

The research team deployed custom-built, low-power sensors across a forest in the Dolomites, Italy, to record the bioelectrical responses of multiple trees during a solar eclipse. The data revealed that, in the hours leading up to the eclipse, the electrical activity of individual trees began to synchronize. This behavior suggests that spruce trees are not isolated organisms but rather part of a unified living system that coordinates its response to external stimuli.