General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Social Life of Forests - The New York Times
Link to tweet
?s=21
Trees appear to communicate and cooperate through subterranean networks of fungi. What are they sharing with one another?
Snip
By the time she was in grad school at Oregon State University, however, Simard understood that commercial clearcutting had largely superseded the sustainable logging practices of the past. Loggers were replacing diverse forests with homogeneous plantations, evenly spaced in upturned soil stripped of most underbrush. Without any competitors, the thinking went, the newly planted trees would thrive. Instead, they were frequently more vulnerable to disease and climatic stress than trees in old-growth forests. In particular, Simard noticed that up to 10 percent of newly planted Douglas fir were likely to get sick and die whenever nearby aspen, paper birch and cottonwood were removed. The reasons were unclear. The planted saplings had plenty of space, and they received more light and water than trees in old, dense forests. So why were they so frail?
Simard suspected that the answer was buried in the soil. Underground, trees and fungi form partnerships known as mycorrhizas: Threadlike fungi envelop and fuse with tree roots, helping them extract water and nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen in exchange for some of the carbon-rich sugars the trees make through photosynthesis. Research had demonstrated that mycorrhizas also connected plants to one another and that these associations might be ecologically important, but most scientists had studied them in greenhouses and laboratories, not in the wild. For her doctoral thesis, Simard decided to investigate fungal links between Douglas fir and paper birch in the forests of British Columbia. Apart from her supervisor, she didnt receive much encouragement from her mostly male peers. The old foresters were like, Why dont you just study growth and yield? Simard told me. I was more interested in how these plants interact. They thought it was all very girlie.
Now a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia, Simard, who is 60, has studied webs of root and fungi in the Arctic, temperate and coastal forests of North America for nearly three decades. Her initial inklings about the importance of mycorrhizal networks were prescient, inspiring whole new lines of research that ultimately overturned longstanding misconceptions about forest ecosystems. By analyzing the DNA in root tips and tracing the movement of molecules through underground conduits, Simard has discovered that fungal threads link nearly every tree in a forest even trees of different species. Carbon, water, nutrients, alarm signals and hormones can pass from tree to tree through these subterranean circuits. Resources tend to flow from the oldest and biggest trees to the youngest and smallest. Chemical alarm signals generated by one tree prepare nearby trees for danger. Seedlings severed from the forests underground lifelines are much more likely to die than their networked counterparts. And if a tree is on the brink of death, it sometimes bequeaths a substantial share of its carbon to its neighbors.
Arne
(2,116 posts)Got smirks, they slowly backed away.
wcmagumba
(2,892 posts)just ask the Zen masters...
wendyb-NC
(3,334 posts)I've got to read that article. Thanks for posting, soothsayer.
Response to soothsayer (Original post)
CatLady78 This message was self-deleted by its author.
soothsayer
(38,601 posts)But sometimes not.
Interesting to explore
Response to soothsayer (Reply #5)
CatLady78 This message was self-deleted by its author.
central scrutinizer
(11,663 posts)(So far) are fungi mycelium
soothsayer
(38,601 posts)soothsayer
(38,601 posts)I wish the competing evolutionary narratives that saw symbiosis as a key element had won the day. Darwins theory makes us very resistant to other ways of thinking.
central scrutinizer
(11,663 posts)In 1981. All the giant overstory trees were killed, knocked down like bowling bins, then salvage logged. Surviving underneath, sheltered by their dead parents, were tiny, stunted, gnarly firs and hemlocks that couldnt compete for sunlight before but still contained all the same DNA. But now they had abundant sun, water, nutrients and would have produced cones in a few years. The forest would have been back in a century or so, an eyeblink to Mother Nature.
bucolic_frolic
(43,361 posts)I'm finding that small tree species, reaching maturity and densely populated, can strangle out tall trees in the struggle for survival. So much for the mighty oak!
JohnnyRingo
(18,662 posts)Maybe it was in the Rolling Stone, but it was a fascinating article. I had no idea forests can be so animated and work together in a living ecosystem.
Thanx for posting. I hope everyone reads the piece. It's that good.
erronis
(15,379 posts)I've always been skeptical of the gaia theories but am becoming convinced that there's a lot more to life than what this current brand of hominids think.
erronis
(15,379 posts)As well as the above-ground interactions. Fascinating.
japple
(9,844 posts)Beautifully written, great stories within. We don't know what we've done to our planet and may not learn in our lifetime.
peoli
(3,111 posts)Warpy
(111,371 posts)It's an information superhighway that speeds up interactions between a large, diverse population of individuals. It allows individuals who may be widely separated to communicate and help each other out. But it also allows them to commit new forms of crime.
No, we're not talking about the internet, we're talking about fungi. While mushrooms might be the most familiar part of a fungus, most of their bodies are made up of a mass of thin threads, known as a mycelium. We now know that these threads act as a kind of underground internet, linking the roots of different plants. That tree in your garden is probably hooked up to a bush several metres away, thanks to mycelia.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141111-plants-have-a-hidden-internet
Time to give those puffballs and that leaf litter more respect, I guess.
Response to Warpy (Reply #16)
CatLady78 This message was self-deleted by its author.
soothsayer
(38,601 posts)Warpy
(111,371 posts)A day with a mycologist didn't turn up what we'd gone looking for, but we did find juvenile puffballs. We were happy with that.
GreatCaesarsGhost
(8,585 posts)Aired on Nov 17
Excellent show.
catchnrelease
(1,946 posts)Thanks for posting. I'm in the middle of reading The Overstory now and it's good too. So much interesting info out there about how plants communicate both below and above ground via chemical means. I love it!