The winds are traveling fast through this veil of tree branches. Swirls that only can be seen by the subtle movement of leaves, falling slowly on the ground. Colors change when sunlight is not so prominent through the canopy.

Darkness in the plain summery afternoon is something to notice even though squirrels do not lose their chances.

They know that the end of summer will soon become autumn — more food abundance to many animals in an ancient oak forest. The soil is full of decaying leaves from the last falling season. It is almost like a soft mattress, moistening the territory beneath.

After a strong gust of wind, mature acorns drop to the ground, resonating a crackling wave, alerting the hungriest ones in the area. Squirrels do not take long to find the opportunity.

They run, more like galloping, in a subtle way, leaving their tail upright to keep balance. With agility, they bite the acorn and drag them until somewhere they can hide from competitors.

They have to stash food for winter, so the more acorns, the better. Working alone, they continue this process of collecting acorns through the summer until their stock is complete. However, it is not a problem when they run out of space.

They decide instead to bury the acorns, sometimes miles away from where they first collected. The funny thing is that the numbers of buried acorns are so high that they forget most of them where they are. Many of these seeds are lost over the years due to the squirrels' amnesia.

Oaks, yet, cannot speak, run, hide, drag or dig. However, they can provide strategies to grow their siblings.

Instead of relying on the wind to propagate their seeds, which may not always be a successful task, oaks can use the squirrel digging ability. That's right.

Unintentionally, the squirrel action may take years to be accomplished, and sometimes unsuccessfully. But oak's seeds have a better chance of germination when squirrels take these acorns miles away from the parent's area, sometimes exposing to better soil, location, and less competitive environment.

Most of the oak trees in temperate and tropical climates depend on squirrels to spread their seeds. This is one of the many symbiosis relationships in the wild.

Oaks, neither squirrels, are aware of this process. It only happens by chance, and it has been happening for millions of years since these species have been sharing the same space.

Oak's acorns are heavy. Its embryo has different layers of protection, with a holding cap underneath. As soon as it matures, the petiole holding the acorn to the twig drops. They are great shelterbelts, limiting the amount of gust to pollinate their seeds.

Other animals then are essential to give this species a chance of survival. And it has been doing for a long time. Without this simple mutualistic relationship, human society would not produce great features from oak's wood, for instance.

Early civilizations in the west European region would struggle to find suitable material apart from oak to build their houses, boats, and villages. Tools would lack complexity, and world exploration could have halted for a long time. They would have to rely on ash wood but accepting the limited offer from nature.

Hard to imagine that a simple detail of nature interaction could make a difference in the human world.

We should thank our little friends for foraging the forests, ignored by their ability to give us the chance of social innovation, and to transform, one way or another, humans into what we are today.

Thank you for reading.

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