The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben: summary and key ideas. Knowingo.

Why read it

Visits a living stump that neighboring beeches apparently fed sugar, then follows root and fungal links trees may use to share food and warn
Explains forests and climate: older trees grow faster, most carbon stays in soil humus, intact forests cool themselves and trees carry rain inland
Argues for careful selective cutting and leaving some forests wild, and shows how much life one old tree and dead wood support

Hikers and nature lovers curious about how forests really work
Gardeners curious about spacing, nursery trees and city street trees
Foresters, woodland owners and readers weighing logging against wilderness protection

Daniel ChamovitzPlant geneticist and author of What a Plant Knows
“At once romantic and scientific, [Wohlleben's] view of the forest calls on us all to reevaluate our relationships with the plant world.”
David SuzukiCanadian science broadcaster and environmental activist
You will never look at a tree the same way after reading Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees, which reveals the mindboggling properties and behavior of these terrestrial giants. Read this electrifying book, then go out and hug a tree - with admiration and gratitude.
Andrea WulfGerman British historian and writer
[A] declaration of love and an engrossing primer on trees, brimming with facts and an unashamed awe for nature.
Thomas PakenhamAnglo Irish historian and arborist
Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees breaks entirely new ground ... [Wohlleben] has listened to trees and decoded their language. Now he speaks for them.
John BurnsideScottish poet and writer
The Hidden Life of Trees is a wonderful, provocative book that draws together half a century of much-neglected and misunderstood plant science and frames it within field observations by an acute and empathetic forester.
Maria PopovaEssayist and founder of the Brain Pickings blog
[W]hat emerges from Wohlleben’s revelatory reframing of our oldest companions is an invitation to see anew what we have spent eons taking for granted

Peter WohllebenGerman forester and author, founder of a forest academy
- Born on 3 June 1964 in Bonn, a German forester, author and conservationist.
- After forestry school in Rottenburg am Neckar he took a job in 1987 as a government wood ranger in the Rhineland Palatinate.
- Became the forester of the municipality of Hümmel in 1991, after first working as office manager of a forestry office.
- Grew disenchanted with the damage done by the techniques he was expected to use, including the felling of mature trees and the use of insecticides.
- Gave up his civil service post in 2006 and moved into the employ of the municipality of Hümmel.
- Began publishing books that popularize research on ecology and forest management in 2007.
- Founded a Forest Academy for education and advocacy, and teaches forest owners to manage ecologically conscious forests.
- His forest work has won the Heinz Sielmann Award, the Environmental Award from Environmental Action Germany and a Conservation Medal from BUND in Bavaria, among others.

Pushes backEntangled Life
Wohlleben argues that trees in a stand appear to share sugar through roots and fungi and feed weaker neighbors; Sheldrake argues that fungal transfers vary from study to study, can flow without any intent to help, and do not show that every forest is one cooperative system.