Can you see the crowns not touching forming a canopy with jigsaw like spacing...this is crown shyness

Many reasons hypothesised for this, but such “social distancing” or personal space may be necessary for each tree’s self preservation and survival 1/3

inter-crown spacing avoids abrasions in wind, allows for sunlight to penetrate to the forest floor supporting all other life necessary for a trees survival, and prohibits the spread of vines, and may inhibit the spread of leaf-eating insect larvae 2/3
http://cutt.ly/IgfwD47 

Some explanations for how such neighbour detection works http://cutt.ly/NgfwUAS  http://cutt.ly/ggfwIFq 

Source of images http://cutt.ly/0gfwPcH 

First image sciencehalimah https://cutt.ly/IveEge7 
2nd image johndahn Flickr https://cutt.ly/KveEJag