full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Suzanne Simard: How trees talk to each other

Unscramble the Blue Letters


I was so excited, I ran from plot to plot and I checked all 80 replicates. The evidence was clear. The C-13 and C-14 was showing me that paper birch and Douglas fir were in a lively two-way cavotoiensrn. It turns out at that time of the year, in the summer, that brcih was sending more cobran to fir than fir was snindeg back to birch, especially when the fir was shaded. And then in later experiments, we found the opposite, that fir was sending more carbon to birch than birch was sending to fir, and this was because the fir was still growing while the birch was lfeasels. So it turns out the two siepecs were ieptnednnredet, like yin and yang.

Open Cloze


I was so excited, I ran from plot to plot and I checked all 80 replicates. The evidence was clear. The C-13 and C-14 was showing me that paper birch and Douglas fir were in a lively two-way ____________. It turns out at that time of the year, in the summer, that _____ was sending more ______ to fir than fir was _______ back to birch, especially when the fir was shaded. And then in later experiments, we found the opposite, that fir was sending more carbon to birch than birch was sending to fir, and this was because the fir was still growing while the birch was ________. So it turns out the two _______ were ______________, like yin and yang.

Solution


  1. leafless
  2. species
  3. conversation
  4. sending
  5. birch
  6. carbon
  7. interdependent

Original Text


I was so excited, I ran from plot to plot and I checked all 80 replicates. The evidence was clear. The C-13 and C-14 was showing me that paper birch and Douglas fir were in a lively two-way conversation. It turns out at that time of the year, in the summer, that birch was sending more carbon to fir than fir was sending back to birch, especially when the fir was shaded. And then in later experiments, we found the opposite, that fir was sending more carbon to birch than birch was sending to fir, and this was because the fir was still growing while the birch was leafless. So it turns out the two species were interdependent, like yin and yang.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
mother trees 7
carbon dioxide 4
mama grizzly 4
douglas fir 4
hub trees 4
dioxide gas 3
geiger counter 3
complex systems 3
mycorrhizal networks 3
connect trees 2
poor dog 2
pine seedling 2
seedling root 2
plastic bags 2
stable isotope 2
paper birch 2
defense signals 2
mother tree 2
mycorrhizal network 2
future stresses 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
carbon dioxide gas 3
pine seedling root 2

Important Words


  1. birch
  2. carbon
  3. checked
  4. clear
  5. conversation
  6. douglas
  7. evidence
  8. excited
  9. experiments
  10. fir
  11. growing
  12. interdependent
  13. leafless
  14. lively
  15. paper
  16. plot
  17. ran
  18. replicates
  19. sending
  20. shaded
  21. showing
  22. species
  23. summer
  24. time
  25. turns
  26. yang
  27. year
  28. yin