Sometimes science just happens when you're not prepared for it. Researchers Delphine Farmer and Mj Riches were in the woods of Colorado studying the leaf-level photosynthesis of Ponderosa pines in 2020. Or as we non-scientists would call it, pine needle-level photosynthesis. The pores in a tree's leaves (or needles) take in carbon dioxide and emit oxygen and other materials. But there was smoke from wildfires in the area, and they found that the trees' pores had essentially shut down and were not doing their usual life-sustaining actions. The trees had detected the smoke.
This defense mechanism led the two scientists to look into the effects of wildfire smoke and other pollutants on a tree's health. There's not much a tree can do to defend itself from fire, but they can reject poor quality air -at least for a short time. Read about how trees breathe, until they refuse to, at the Conversation.
(Image credit: Matt Lavin)