Many of us learned that we should not seek shelter from lightning under a tree. Trees stand taller than many other structures and can end up acting as lightning rods.
So I was surprised to learn about a research study led by Evan Gora, a forest ecologist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. The study focused on how lightning impacts biodiversity and carbon storage in Panama's tropical forests. Cary Institute, located in Millbrook, New York, is an independent, not-for-profit environmental research organization that studies the world's ecosystems and the natural and human factors that influence them.
In 2015, while working in Panama, Bora and his colleagues, came across Dipteryx oleifera, a tropical tree, that survived a lightning strike with little damage even though the strike killed 78 percent of the parasitic vines, known as lianas, growing in it. It also killed more than a dozen different kinds of neighboring trees. D. oleifera trees are also called eboe, choibá, tonka bean, or almendro trees.
During their research, Gora and his team discovered other D. oleifera trees that also thrived after being hit by lightning. So they studied the trees more closely. They are an important species in Panamanian forests. Their fruits and seeds provide crucial food sources for some rainforest mammals, especially during the dry season. They are quite tall and have a wide canopy.
The results of their research was published in the May 2025 issue of New Phytologist. You can find it at https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/nph.70062
Though scientists had thought some trees tolerated lightning better than others, there was little evidence for it. Gora and his team changed that by demonstrating that some trees indeed do survive lightning strikes better than others. In fact, they can benefit from the electric strikes.
Gora and his colleagues used a unique lightning system to track 93 trees that had been struck by lightning in Barro Colorado Nature Monument in central Panama. For two to six years after the lightning strikes, the team carefully measured the trees, their crown and trunk condition, and their survival rates. They also noted the number of lianas and neighboring trees that had died as a result of the lightning strikes. Nine of those trees were D. oleiferas, all of which survived the direct lightning strikes with little or no damage. However, 64 percent of the other trees in the study died within two years.
D. oleifera are estimated to live for hundreds, maybe more than a thousand years and may be directly struck by lightning every 56 years. However, during the study, Gora and his team found one D. oleifera that had been hit twice in five years. Because the trees have such a tolerance for lightning strikes, they are 14 times better at producing offspring than other tree species. The team's next goal is to find out what electrical or structural traits help these trees survive lightning strikes so well.