Secret Lives of Trees

Researchers probe the life teeming deep inside tree trunks

- -Saugat Bolakhe

SCIENTISTS HAVE MAPPED microbe populations in human guts, deep-sea ecosystems and even clouds. Yet the microbial communities inside tree trunks have remained largely unseen until now. For a recent study in Nature, researchers analyzed about 150 trees to map the communities of microbes living in 16 species. They estimate that a single mature tree hosts about one trillion bacteria in its trunk “microbiome,” with distinct communities living in different layers.