While the year 2020 taught us a lot about social distancing, plants also kept their distance from each other, but they did that long before we started. The phenomenon is known as “crown shyness,” in which the crowns of trees don’t touch and form gaps, allowing trees to share resources and stay healthy, according to a National Geographic report.
Now Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer Ramesh Pandey has shared a video on his official Twitter account documenting the same phenomenon. The video shows trees practicing social distancing.
Along with the video, the caption reads, “Leaves of trees, especially of the same species, don’t touch each other. It’s a kind of social distancing called crown shyness.”
Watch the video here:
Canopy of trees specially of the same species do not touch each other.
It’s a kind of social distancing called crown shyness. pic.twitter.com/AnYcu9lhtw
— Ramesh Pandey (@rameshpandeyifs) January 18, 2023
The video was posted this morning and has so far been viewed more than 31,000 times on Twitter. One user commented: “What might be nature’s strategy here…small opening to let elements in for surface shrub creepers?…care for other species I mean…survival of all, not the strongest.”
Another user commented, “Great view sir. It also indicates your deep research and study on nature and its behavior. We all know your closeness to nature and this post is the reflection of that phenomenon.”
The third user wrote, “It’s really soothing just staring at the awnings dancing in the wind.”
The scientists still don’t fully understand why the tops of trees so often refuse to touch each other, National Geographic report claims. Some scientists initially hypothesized that trees were simply unable to fill the spaces between their canopies because of a lack of light — a critical resource for photosynthesis — where their leaves overlapped.
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