Overview
- Ecologists Ariel Novoplansky and Hezi Yizhaq published a rebuttal in Trends in Plant Science challenging a 2025 paper that linked tree electrical activity to an upcoming eclipse.
- Their analysis points to a temperature drop, a passing thunderstorm, and nearby lightning as more plausible drivers of the observed electrical surges.
- Lightning records show 20 strikes within about 45 kilometers of the Dolomites site between October 22 and 25, 2022, including 18 during the 14-hour window before the eclipse when the surge was reported.
- The original study relied on just three living Norway spruce trees and five stumps at a single site and reported synchronized signals starting 14 hours before a shallow partial eclipse.
- The critique notes the eclipse dimmed light by only about 10.5% for roughly two hours and offered only new-moon-scale gravitational cues, arguing that rigorous replication and stronger controls are needed before accepting anticipatory or collective interpretations.