FYI- Trees Communicate with Each Other!

When you think of communication between living things, what comes to mind? Writing, art, talking, texting, hand signaling-- these are all some common mediums for communication. But these are also very human-central methods. Of course, we are humans, so naturally we think about communication in terms of our own lives. But what people don’t often realize is that all life around us has ways of communicating. Dolphins use echolocation. Flowers pick up sound vibrations from bees as a way to know when to prepare for pollination. And trees use pathways rooted deeply in the ground created by fungi to send signals to one another. That’s right-- trees literally have conversations with one another!

An article from BBC describes this mycelial network connecting the trees as an “information superhighway.” These pathways are so extraordinary, complex, beneficial, and information-bearing that “fungi has been described as ‘Earth’s natural internet.’” When you see a mushroom, you may think that the figure you see is all that’s there. But actually, that’s just the sexual organ of the fungus. The true mushroom, known as mycelium, extends miles underground. The world’s largest organism on Earth is a honey fungus growing in the Blue Mountains in Oregon, measuring at 2.4 miles. It encompass 1,665 football fields worth of mycelium in the soil. Paul Stamets, easily one of the most well-known mycologists of his day and author of the book Mycelium Running, not only notes the abundance of mycelium in a few steps taken on a forest floor, but also goes on to write about the awareness of the fungus, expressing his amazement that the miles and miles of mycelium network are actually sensing his own presence above the surface of the ground.

The network created by mycelium has the power to completely transform one’s idea about a forest. Rather than seeing each tree as its own individual organism, one may begin to understand the forest itself as that one, connected organism--a very much alive and communicating network of sophisticated relationships that come together to form a larger whole. The forest ecosystem is not just alive and growing, but it is constantly transferring information throughout. Plants can use this underground network to transport nutrients to each other as well as elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus. In fact, a dying tree can transport its nutrients to its children through the network. Their connection also allows for the possibility of defense from invasive plants that are threatening their ecosystem, which they can spread harmful chemicals to using the underground internet.

Overall, though most people's mushroom knowledge tends to only go so far as which portobello  goes best with which pasta sauce, they prove to be an extremely important part of the world’s ecosystems as a whole. In fact, there is even a term for symbiotic relationships between plant's vascular roots systems and fungi, known as Mycorrhiza. Just to give you an idea of how vital fungus is to our environments, it has been calculated that 80 to 90 percent of all of the world’s plants species demonstrate Mycorrhiza! The next time you are in a forest, remember to look down by your feet at a whole other little world stirring just below the surface.

By Emmaline Elsbree