Trees are a lot like people: they experience stress and they get infected with bugs or diseases and they can be attacked by fire, windstorms, floods, and droughts. We call these things that attack or infect trees disturbances. Trees are not like people, because they cannot go to the doctor to get better and they cannot move away from whatever is disturbing them. This last part is very important because it means that, in order for trees to have existed for hundreds of millions of years, they must have had the ability to cope with disturbances without a doctor. As you may imagine, different kinds of trees have evolved different ways to deal with certain disturbances. This is what we have learned from our research in an area called the Pine Barrens of New Jersey on the East Coast of the United States.

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