The one-sentence summary

Trees communicate with each other through a network of roots and fungi below ground.

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WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

  • This is the autobiographical story of a Canadian botanist and her battle to establish that trees can ‘talk’ to each other and cooperate for survival by trading vital nutrients.
  • The author’s work has uncovered the wisdom and intelligence of the forest. It all began when she dug up a layer of fungus that was intertwined with tree roots. The layer had a whole apparatus of truffles, cords and strands that fanned out and had the texture of mushrooms. It looked as though it had all the tools to act as a joiner between the tree roots and the soil’s water.
  • This was followed by years of research that showed the mutualism between trees and the fungus – a two-way exchange of photosynthetic sugars. The material that enables it is called mychorrhiza, a combination of myco meaning fungus and rhiza meaning root. My. Core Rise. Ah. She eventually discovered hundreds of different types, and a paper in Nature magazine announced the findings as the wood-wide web.
  • More research showed that the fungus was linking old trees to young seedlings. A particular variant called rhizopogon truffle was found to link almost all the trees in a test area, and one old tree was found to be connected to 47 others. The huge ancient trees were then christened mother trees. Once the phenomenon was identified, the author was able to find many other mother trees of differing species.

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT

  • More scientific investigation revealed many other elements of these processes. Different species such as birch and fir exchange information by passing on surplus nutrients or receiving them depending on which species is faring better at the time. Inasmuch as they can anticipate excesses and deficiencies in these and pass the necessary information and resources through the fungal mass means that it is not an exaggeration to claim that the trees are communicating.
  • Taking this to another level, the author investigates whether information is transmitted across synapses in the mycorrhizal networks in the same way that our brains do. Amino acids, water, hormones, defence signals, allelochemicals (poisons) and other metabolites are known to cross the synapse between fungal and plant membranes, so why not?
  • Dying mother trees at the end of their life cycle, for example after infestation by beetles, pass their carbon legacy into the shoots of their seedlings through the network.
  • The aboriginal people of British Columbia talk of trees as people. Not only with a sort of intelligence akin to humans, but even a spiritual quality not unlike ours.

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

  • The book is heavily autobiographical and includes information on her family members, life and death experiences and more, so those predominantly interested in the science of it all may care to skim over those parts.