Roots Stabilize Trees Against Wind

photograph of trees in front of a blue sky during the day

Biological Strategy

Longleaf pine

AskNature Team

Image: Leo Miranda/USFWS / Flickr / Some rights reserved

Protect From Wind

Wind subjects living systems to various forces, such as compression, twisting, turbulence, and tension. These forces put living systems at risk of losing the ability to perform life-essential functions, such as when a plant becomes uprooted. Wind can result from weather phenomena or rapid movement through the air, as when flying. Wind is typically not a constant or predictable force, so living systems must be able to function both with and without its presence by adjusting to its direction and speed. A good example is how plants’ leaves and stems are flexible so that they can align with the wind, rather than being battered by it.

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Conifers and Others (Pines, Spruce, Gingko)

Clade Gymnosperms (“naked seeds“): Conifers, cycads, Gingko, gnetophytes

There are approximately 1,000 known species of Gymnosperms. These include well known needle-bearing plants like pines, firs, and spruce, as well as some with broad leaves like the Gingko and the gnetophytes. Instead of flowers, gymnosperms produce unenclosed (“naked”)seeds exposed on the surface of cone scales. Economically, conifers make up 45 percent of the world’s lumber production. The first gymnosperms evolved over 390 million years ago in the Paleozoic Era and dominated landscapes for a quarter of a billion years before the evolution and diversification of flowering plants.

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Roots of longleaf pine protect from strong winds by forming both large anchoring taproots and a widespread lateral root system.

“The damage resistance of longleaf pine could be related to firm anchorage provided by the large taproot and widespread lateral root system. Our excavations of longleaf pine root systems (Baruch Forest Science Institute, pers. comm.) indicated that longleaf pine taproots extended two meters vertically in the soil and the lateral root system extended up to six meters horizontally from the taproot… An alternative scheme capitalizes on little more than the ability of soil to withstand compressive force. If the trunk is continued downward beneath the soil as a stiff taproot, and if ramifying lateral roots near the soil’s surface fix the location of the tree, then pushing the trunk in one direction will push the taproot in the other (Edelin and Atger 1994). Soil, especially when beneath a layer of superficial roots, ought to resist this sideways push quite well; the scheme, which we might just call ‘taprooting’ is shown in figure 21.3c. Taprooting depends on good resistance of the taproot to bending as a cantilever–a high level of flexural stiffness–as is sufficient broadside area to push against so as not to slip sideways through soil. (Additional substantial vertical ‘striker’ roots, according to Perry [1982] and Crook and Ennos [1996], may supplement the mechanical role of taproots.)” (Vogel 2003:431,433)