What do trees tweet?

More than 300 million people use the social-networking service Twitter each day. Lately, this has even come to include a few trees. As part of a study on the climate in German forests some trees were outfitted with monitoring devices and set up with Twitter accounts. They independently tweet their vital statistics, such as evaporation and water flow, conveying messages like “I am thirsty.” The trees’ equipment includes sensors and measuring instruments and even a WLAN connection. In addition to the first test trees in Germany, there are also tweeting trees in the Netherlands and Belgium. They raise awareness of climate change and its consequences for trees.