Do trees work? If they do, how can you tell if one is working harder than others?

Question

Do trees work? If they do, how can you tell if one is working harder than others?

Answer 1

It depends on your definition of 'work'; transportation of water happens through the xylem and moving mass is a typical physical definition of 'work'.

For smaller trees you could devise an experiment which measured the uptake of water, or if you wanted to determine how much oxygen was being released through photosynthesis (as a measure of how active the process was in a particular tree) you could cover the tree in (say) transparent plastic and monitor the oxygen concentration and how it changed.