possibly, but they tend to grow farther apart than normal trees - or those that are thousands of years old. I think they pretty much take a large share of light and nutrients out of the surrounding area. Once they are big enough nothing else can compete.

And I think those ranges of roots were towards the upper limit and not the average.

__________________
"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

and actually, figuring the max at 200 feet radius that only amounts to 125600 square feet, or less than 3 acres. but I'm being nit picky.

__________________
"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

Yes, trees in a group can have their roots cross right past each other and anchor each other, and they also lean on each other above ground to some extent, so that when the wind blows, one tree's branches interlock with another's and it gets much harder for any of them to fall down (especially on the inside, because the wind doesn't penetrate well beyond the edges of the stand). In some species, the roots can even fuse instead of just interlocking; a group of albino trees was once found that couldn't photosynthesize due ot lack of chlorophyl but were living anyway on nutrients absorbed from their neighbors through the roots.

Trees grown out in the open tend to grow somewhat different in form from others of the same species grown in a stand. Among other trees, height is important for collecting light, but in the open, being squatty and wide gets you more sunlight instead, and also means you make a shorter lever for the wind to push against. So the very same seed, with the same genes, will naturally (without pruning) grow into one shape in the open and another in a forest. Non-tree plants can be the same way; if you ever see the edge of a corn field, and all of the stalks are tall and you can clearly see the stems but can't see other ears behind them standing even higher, then the last few rows of corn plants on the edge of the field have probably been cut. (Politicians sometimes do that to pose in front of the cornfield for a "photo-op" because they think the naturally short ones at the edge don't look right and block the view of the nicely uniform stems found in the middle of the field, which apparently some people think are the more important thing to see.) Normally, while the interior ones stretch for height, the outside rows are shorter and even lean out a bit (because the inside of a plant is more crowded than the outside is so it tries to stretch tall while the other side doesn't). It wouldn't surprise me for the roots to have similar adaptability to crowding and openness, but I haven't heard it said.

But don't mistake that for meaning that all variation in forms from wide to skinny is purely a matter of individuals adjusting growth patterns during their own lives. Species also evolve to be better at one form than another and no species or individual is capable of the extremes that are found between different species. Different species are known for, and visually identifiable by, their different shapes as well as their different sizes, so the location-based variation I mentioned above between members of the same species (or even between clones) is only within the "range" of the given species.

Those trees must have had a certain amount of chlorophyll, probably like the unstable form that is found in a few Sitka Spruce on the Queen Charlotte Islands. That would enable them to reach a size where they could then fuse root systems. They would probably have been shade tolerant to begin, and grown in the understorey. Then, as they attained a position where the albinism would have bleached the chlorophyll, the grafted roots make up the shortfall. That would be my "just so" explanation.

I've seen stumps in thinned stands that remained alive many years after the tree was cut. The bark slowly grows over the cut, same as when a scar heals. The roots were grafted to their surviving neighbours.

Sounds kind of like us, when we eat carrots! Except we got feet instead of roots.

__________________
As above, so below