The Social Lives of Trees

[Steppingfeet]

I listened to a great Fresh Air episode on NPR (Dave Davies was subbing in for Terri Gross).

Description: Ecologist Suzanne Simard says trees are "social creatures" that communicate with each other in remarkable ways — including warning each other of danger and sharing nutrients at critical times. Her book is 'Finding the Mother Tree.'

I picked up some amazing new understandings about the way that trees and other plants "talk" to one and literally support each other. For instance:

• The mycorrhizal fungi in the soil act as a network between the trees. Some fungi are specific to a certain species, other fungi can transfer information, nutrients, and chemical signals between multiple species.
  
• One example was cited of a mutualism between Birch and Douglass Fir trees. If the canopy of the Birch tree shades the Douglas Fir (thereby reducing the Douglas's sun intake), the Birch will literally transfer carbon to support the Douglas Fir through the fungal network. The more it shades, the more carbon is transferred.
  
• Tomato plants injured with a pathogen can communicate their health status to other tomato plants to help them increase their defenses against the pathogen.
  
• These researches call old trees in the forest "mother trees." The mother trees act as nodes or hubs in the network, helping to nurture new generations of seedlings in our network. (I love this notion.)
  
• This mycorrhizal fungi acts as a biological neural network that functions in some (many?) respects similarly to our own brains. Apparently when it's mapped it displays the same similarity
  

Fascinating stuff if interested! It reminds me of the way James Cameron artistically depicted an alive and sentient Pandora in Avatar.


https://www.npr.org/2021/04/29/991986724...s-of-trees