There is a novel called Overstory that has, as part of its foundation, how trees "communicate" via chemicals and root systems. It is a pretty good read. The story is actually about half a dozen people and how their lives affect the lives of the others, but it has a lot of really good science and theory about how plants react to challenges as well.
So we feed whitetail deer. Well Becky does and I fund her habit so WE. As such we see all the birthbabies, the adolescents, the romance, the grumpy old does, the fighting prime males. Sadly too, we see the end of their days sometimes. The day before yesterday a small doe that had not been doing well over the last two weeks decided that a small cedar tree in my front yard was where she was going to lay down that final time. So why a cedar? what about that last location was communicated by all the smells and vibrations of all this electromagneticry? She is alive in this picture, which I warn the sensitive viewer to not observe. While it may be natural, it is hard on ones soul to see a beautiful creature in distress, or know that I dispatched it moments later. I took the appropriate parts to the ranger station for cwd testing and the rest was bagged and taken to the landfill as I felt it possible we had the first known case of cwd in Alabama, just in an abundance of caution. But why there? Why under a slow grower like a cedar? The composting aspects of so much protein and the resulting amino acids from the breakdown made me curious. I stole it from that tree when I took the carcass to the landfill. I really wonder what if the communication of the plants is known to the creatures that live amongst them? The cwd has been reported in middle Mississippi and Southwest Tennessee according to the Ranger I spoke with. He had 3 other cases to look into that same day. He said they also test for dna resistance, something they are finding exists in the pools of deer, whitetail and black, and elk.
