Electrical Signals Too

Trees also communicate through electrical impulses traveling through their root systems. When one part of a tree is wounded, electrical signals spread at about one centimeter per second — slow compared to animal nerves, but functionally similar.

Electrical and chemical signals can move within trees and sometimes through root or fungal connections between neighboring plants. Some researchers describe these linked responses as a kind of distributed intelligence — not consciousness, but coordinated information processing. Others argue the metaphor can go too far, so the safest claim is that forests contain many channels for signaling, competition, and cooperation.