Trees Know an Eclipse Is Coming Before it Starts

Two private organizations, the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union, have said they will step in and produce the assessment together, which is due in 2027. A past president of the Meteorological Society, Anjuli Bamzi, told the Associated Press that operating without the assessment was like an ostrich putting its head in the sand.

The last climate assessment was issued in 2023. It concluded, among other things, that the harmful impacts of climate change on the U.S. were increasing as extreme events and hazards intensified. According to Ars Technica, Trump’s last administration rushed the assessment, releasing it on the Friday after Thanksgiving in 2018. Trump said he did not believe its conclusions that human activities are responsible for climate change. There are now concerns in the scientific community that the Trump administration will issue its own report using alternative views on climate change.

In other news, the administration has issued a “proclamation” that relaxes restrictions on commercial fishing in a large protected area of the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument.  Now, U.S. ships will be allowed to fish up to 50 miles of the area south and west of Hawai'i that includes sanctuaries for endangered species and pristine environments.

The congressional hearing came just after the Metals Company, a Canadian firm, submitted the first application ever to the U.S. government asking for permission to mine the international waters of the Pacific between Hawai'i and Mexico. About ten days earlier, President Trump signed an executive order requiring the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to expedite permits for companies to mine in international and U.S. territorial waters.

At the House hearing, the ranking Democrat on the committee, Jared Huffman of California, said that the Canadian enterprise and the Trump administration were proceeding toward mining the seabed in a “reckless cowboy manner.” The New York Times reports that Huffman and other Democrats were skeptical of the need for cobalt and nickel from seabed nodules because electric vehicle manufacturers were shifting to batteries that did not use the minerals. The head of the Metals Company told the House committee that any damage to the seafloor would be far outweighed by growth in jobs and supply chains for the minerals that are controlled by China.

Trump’s order ignores an effort underway since 2014 by the UN International Seabed Authority, which has the responsibility of regulating mineral extraction on the seabed outside territorial waters. However, the U.S. is not a member of the organization. Other countries denounced Trump’s order. France has urged a moratorium on the practice until more is known about its impact. A French official told journalists that no one can claim the right to destroy the oceans, especially where they have no territorial rights.

Various sustainable alternatives have been promoted, but they’ve not gained market share due to higher production costs. However, a solution may be in the offing. According to a study published in the journal Sustainability Science and Technology, researchers have developed a biodegradable sanitary pad made from cornstarch.

The cornstarch yields a material called polylactic acid or PLA which can be extracted from corn, as well as from rice or sweet potatoes. Given that corn is one of the most widely grown crops in the world and cornstarch is easy to source, manufacturing the pads could be affordable and easily integrated into production methods.

There are some potential downsides. PLA could create a higher demand for farmland along with an increased use of fertilizers and pesticides. Also, the material requires industrial composting to biodegrade. That said, the sanitary pads would have a lower climate and environmental footprint than traditional ones that rely on fossil fuels and have a more toxic manufacturing process.

Evolutionary ecologist Monica Gagliano from Southern Cross University in Australia led a study in which her team attached sensors to spruce trees (Picea abies) of various ages and sun exposures in the Dolomites of Italy to monitor their bioelectrical impulses during an eclipse in 2022. The movement of ions across cell membranes creates electrical currents in all organisms, including humans, which influences various biological processes.

They found that electrical activity of all trees became synchronized before and during the one-hour eclipse. These activities occurred at a microscopic level, such as inside water molecules of the trees, with older specimens having a more pronounced response, nearly 14 hours before younger ones. After the event ended, all the plants went back to business as usual.

In their paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the authors suggest that trees might have sensed the eclipse because of gravimetric tides, which are subtle shifts in Earth’s gravity caused by the alignment of the sun and moon. During a solar eclipse when tides peak, the team says older trees with a more expansive root system could pick up on these changes—and remember them—similar to how plants might anticipate seasonal changes.

The authors say the trees’ electrical activity can influence an ecosystem’s resilience, biodiversity, and overall function by helping it cope with rapid and unpredictable changes, adding that the findings underscore the importance of protecting old-growth forests, especially in light of climate change.

This notion that trees communicate, in this and previous research by the team, has drawn some skepticism, but Gagliano insists this recent study furthers the science and the data show “we are watching the famous ‘wood wide web’ in action!”

This study will be featured in a new documentary, Il Codice del Bosco (The Forest Code), to be released this month.