stressed?

 Trees have to deal with stress all the time. Weather it is the lack of water or too much water, pollution or changing environments trees have to learn to deal. Biologist's at Michigan Technological University have identified the molecular mechanism that common cottonwood and aspen trees use to adapt to changing soil conditions. The hormone gibberellins or GA have been found to affect the trees growth both above ground and below. When there is not enough GA the plant develops a large below ground network of roots, but above ground the tree looked dwarfed. When GA was applied to these same dwarfed plants they rapidly grew, but their root system shriveled up. They showed that there is a fine balancing act that goes on when a tree is under stress. The article can be found here.