Trees communicate, from Solar Eclipses to the Hidden Electrical Networks of Forests
I always thought that plants are more advanced then animals and men, because they had more time to learn and evolve; and not thousands of years, but entire geological eras in which animals and humans were not yet seen. Plants were masters of this planet, and still are. Where animals and humans cannot reach, temperatures too cold, temperatures too hot, a plant will surely grow anyway: some moss, algae, or the resurrection plant in the desert. They are the first to have learned adaptation and group survival strategies.
We do not really know anything about plants, since their world is quite slow and invisible: we can’t even see the opening of a flower’s petals with the naked eye.
We say that plants cannot move, but in reality they move more then us, they discriminate and choose, and they communicate and they help each other in very effective ways. They are sensitive to the cosmic energies and to emotions, and they can heal themselves.
Forests are shaped by electrical signals, chemical messages, and vast underground partnerships between plants and fungi. Among the most interesting discoveries is a study published in 2025 suggesting that trees may synchronize their bioelectrical activity during a solar eclipse.
The Solar Eclipse Study
A team of researchers monitored several Norway spruce trees in the Italian Dolomites during the partial solar eclipse of October 25, 2022. By placing sensors on trunks and root systems, they recorded changes in the trees’ electrical activity before, during, and after the eclipse.
They observed an increase in synchronization among the trees’ bioelectrical signals. Even more surprisingly, some of the oldest trees appeared to exhibit coordinated changes several hours before the eclipse occurred.
Because old trees are more experienced and wise, so they can help the others. Like old men should do (but we rarely listen olders when we are young).
The researchers proposed that the forest may function as an interconnected biological network capable of responding collectively to environmental changes.
Electrical Signaling in Plants
Plants are often perceived as passive organisms, yet they possess sophisticated internal communication systems.
Like animal cells, plant cells maintain electrical potential differences across their membranes. When a plant experiences a stimulus—such as injury, drought, temperature shifts, or changes in light intensity—these electrical potentials can change and propagate through its tissues.
Although plants do not possess neurons or brains, their electrical signals serve a similar purpose: they transmit information throughout the organism.
These signals can travel through the vascular system, helping coordinate physiological responses such as activating defenses against herbivores, regulating water use, altering growth patterns, and adjusting metabolic activity.
Far from being inert organisms, plants continuously sense and respond to their environment through dynamic signaling networks.
Biological Synchronization and Resonance
In physics, resonance and synchronization occur when separate systems begin to oscillate in harmony due to shared influences or mutual interactions.
A classic example is a collection of pendulum clocks mounted on the same wall. Over time, their oscillations may become synchronized through subtle vibrations transmitted through the structure.
Something similar may occur in forests. Trees exposed to the same environmental conditions—changes in sunlight, temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, or electromagnetic fields—may develop synchronized electrical patterns.
And with human beings happens the same, how many times does a large crowd enter into emotional resonance, amplifying the emotion without any rational reason?
The possibility that such synchronization for trees could be enhanced through underground biological connections makes the phenomenon particularly fascinating.
The Underground Fungal Network
Beneath every forest lies an immense network of fungal filaments known as hyphae.
The essential is invisible to the human eyes.
Many trees form symbiotic relationships with fungi through structures called mycorrhizae. In this partnership, trees provide sugars produced through photosynthesis, while fungi supply water and mineral nutrients from the soil, in a beatiful gesture of mutual exchange and symbiosis.
The fungal network can connect multiple trees, sometimes even across different species, creating what researchers have informally called the “Wood Wide Web.”
Through these networks, plants can exchange nutrients, carbon compounds, and biochemical signals.
Experiments have shown that trees under attack by insects may trigger defensive responses in neighboring trees connected through the same mycorrhizal network, even before those neighboring trees experience the threat directly, so they can warn each other of danger, stimulating their neighbors to mount an immune response before the danger even arrives.
There is growing evidence that forests function as highly interconnected intelligent systems.
Chemical Communication Through the Air
Plants also communicate above ground.
When attacked by herbivorous insects, many species release volatile organic compounds into the atmosphere. Neighboring plants can detect these chemical signals and begin producing defensive compounds before being attacked themselves.
In effect, one plant may provide an early warning to another.
This form of chemical communication has been documented across numerous plant species and is one of the best-established examples of information exchange within the plant kingdom.
Forests as Complex Living Systems
Taken together, electrical signaling, chemical communication, and fungal networks suggest that forests operate as complex adaptive systems.
Trees possess sophisticated mechanisms for sensing, processing, and responding to information from their environment.
The eclipse study raises the possibility that forests may exhibit forms of collective behavior that we are only beginning to understand.
Synchronization Across Nature
The world of plants is a quantum world, which we struggle to understand because our approach is still that of a deterministic and mechanical science. And with this perspective, it’s difficult to understand the world.
Flocks of birds wheel through the sky in astonishing coordination, changing direction almost instantaneously without any apparent leader. Schools of fish move as if they were a single organism, responding collectively to predators and environmental changes. Ant colonies build intricate societies through countless local interactions, despite the absence of a central command structure.
Even within the human brain, billions of neurons generate coordinated electrical oscillations. Consciousness itself appears to emerge not from a single controlling center, but from the synchronization of vast networks of interacting cells.
In all these systems, complex collective behavior emerges from the interactions of many individual components following relatively simple rules.
Forests may represent another example of this universal principle.
The synchronization observed among trees during the solar eclipse, if confirmed by future studies, could point toward a deeper understanding of how living systems organize themselves across scales—from roots and fungal networks beneath the soil to ecosystems spanning entire landscapes.
Nature repeatedly demonstrates that intelligence, coordination, and adaptation do not require a central authority. They emerge spontaneously from connection itself.
Giulia Maria – Voice of Plenty
Sources
Ostonen et al., “Bioelectrical Synchronization of Spruce Trees During a Solar Eclipse” (2025).
Suzanne Simard’s research on mycorrhizal forest networks.
Stefano Mancuso and the field of Plant Neurobiology.
Monica Gagliano’s studies on plant signaling and perception.
Journal of Plant Physiology.
New Phytologist.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B.