Wood wide web—the underground network of microbes that connects trees—mapped for first time

www.bbc.com...

Research has shown that beneath every forest and wood there is a complex underground web of roots, fungi and bacteria helping to connect trees and plants to one another.

This subterranean social network, nearly 500 million years old, has become known as the "wood wide web".

Now, an international study has produced the first global map of the "mycorrhizal fungi networks" dominating this secretive world.

www.sciencemag.org...

Trees, from the mighty redwoods to slender dogwoods, would be nothing without their microbial sidekicks. Millions of species of fungi and bacteria swap nutrients between soil and the roots of trees, forming a vast, interconnected web of organisms throughout the woods. Now, for the first time, scientists have mapped this “wood wide web” on a global scale, using a database of more than 28,000 tree species living in more than 70 countries.

I found this very interesting.
We all know, more or less, how vast the root network of trees can be. LIke the mighty oak.
How the trees take the moisture they need, even breaching pipes to get water. Undermining foundations.
But this is totally new and different to me.

This study was years in the making, starting in 2012 with the collection of data about trees throughout the world. And ending with a mapping or roughly 3 trillion trees.
The BBC article is a lighter piece, the Science version a little deeper.

RELATED
Climatic controls of decomposition drive the global biogeography of forest-tree symbioses

They need to go further.

A single tree does not have a brain as such and we consider them as non-intelligent but this type of research brings back the question of ... Is The Forest Aware.

Current science would laugh at this concept ... but what do they really know? They haven't even found the soul as yet.

P

Very cool and interesting, you might enjoy this book as I have. It's called Teeming With Microbes
It's about what is going on beneath the surface, and how to encourage the soil web.

I can't find a link from the publisher, but this will do.
gardenerspath.com...

I have a wireless tick tester for testing wiring which sends a signal into the wire and you can trace the wire with the signal in it. I hooked it onto a copper rod I had hammered into a hole I drilled in a tree, sending a signal into the tree. Then I took the pickup and tested the branches and it had a really good signal everywhere on the tree.

I stepped back in amazement of the great conductivity of the signal in the tree and my tick tester went off on the branch of a tree fifteen feet away from that tree. The signal was stronger than what I get from tracing a wire to the back of the car. I tested the branches of the tree I was on then tested the branches of other trees in the area with the same result. All trees within say twenty five to thirty feet had a very strong signal on all branches, and even the bark of the trees. The plants on the ground also had a signal, ferns and raspberry bushes all had a great connectivity to the tree. Remember, the trees were twenty five feet away, but the branches were coming off ten feet up the tree and stuck out another ten feet or so...Perfect signal. It started to fade after the twenty five to thirty foot mark, but it still had signal, just not clear as a bell. The farthest signal I did get was about fifty feet away in a low tree branch.

It impressed me. I do not think it is rare. You can check it yourself, those tick testers are not that expensive, and they are good for tracing wires in cars and homes. A forest is connected. It is a living organism comprised of multiple types of cells, all in communication with each other. Electrolytes in the soils can transfer signals a long way. When a deer walks in the woods and chews on a branch of a tree, the other trees know it close by and they start emitting a chemical to deter the browser from eating too much. I did lots of studying on research of this, my interest was up there. The thing is, I studied scientific research that was done on this, so I am not alone in noticing what was going on. The Indians are correct when they say everything is connected.

originally posted by: pheonix358
They need to go further.

A single tree does not have a brain as such and we consider them as non-intelligent but this type of research brings back the question of ... Is The Forest Aware.

Current science would laugh at this concept ... but what do they really know? They haven't even found the soul as yet.

P

A tree is like a neuron, they share signals with other trees. Here is an article about how a plant can reason. www.sciencedaily.com...

So next time you get whacked in the face by a tree branch, remember, it may have purposely done it because it did not like you.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Very cool, it will be interesting to see what is learnt as they delve further into this, and this to me is more evidence the earth is a living organism, and that glyphosate is far more harmful than people realise as it completely destroys the soils microorganisms and other bacteria.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Excellent thread!
Might I add ...
through Lateral Genetic Transfer,
this network is able to "communicate".

Not only DNA, but the needs of the network.
Thus transferring nutrients,etc.
As I mentioned years ago,
it is an "Awareness" all its own.

S&F

originally posted by: pheonix358
They need to go further.

A single tree does not have a brain as such and we consider them as non-intelligent but this type of research brings back the question of ... Is The Forest Aware.

Current science would laugh at this concept ... but what do they really know? They haven't even found the soul as yet.

P

Well trees do inhale and exhale (it's called breathing), so what more does it take for us to value life here on this planet?

a reply to: InTheLight

We need poop and farts to really appreciate life.

Here we go: Do plants poop? And other important questions

So as long as you think of pooping in general terms, plants do it! They also do things like breathing, sweating, peeing, and even farting. Who knew?

ETA: Also I flagged thread and gave everybody a star.

Good thread . It has previously been thought that life in the plant world is about competition , that they all compete for nutrients light and water , that they race to get ahead of each other .

But this research demonstrates a new and correct model of them co-operating and then sharing and building up communal reserves of exactly these things which they need . , The individual parts of the network such as a large tree , continually store and then regularly redistribute and spread further the buildup of resources in the form of seeds , spent leaves and mast . Nothing is wasted , but all posthumous organic matter comes back to the soil , where it is recycled to build the communal system .

It has been realised and commercially exploited already that certain organisms facilitate these symbiotic relationships , that they find and then lead roots to water and pockets of nutrients via a tiny but physical threading through the soil . So you buy mychorriza in packets . But , perhaps a better way is to gather a sample of undisturbed mixed natural forest floor humic material which will contain a billionized but entirely stable plethora of microlife . If you add this to your growing areas in it will go on to colonise and improve the area as long as there's plenty of organic matter and an absence of substances which retard it immediately such as weedkillers or fungicides . Like adding yeasts to dough , desirable improvements occur .

By adding that humus , or simply compost tea , even in tiny amounts , you achieve multiple results at once , you innoculate the plants ( and according to recent research yourself) against many diseases , eg by adding multiple forms of fungi in that mix you stop the potential for one type of fungi to proliferate and cause problems . You add organisms which may consume and hence retard the population of that very same problem fungi , restoring balance , defeating the problem naturally . The same with viruses - in the presence of billionized micro-organisms , one particular type is unable to multiply unchecked and gain a hold , but in the presence of a largely sterile local environment eg a monocultural field of say wheat , then it's much easier for problems strains which may specialise on certain crops to multiply and hence get a hold and cause problems .

You put the organic environment back into balance by using organic methods , but you upset and keep large areas imbalanced and un-naturally retarded by using inorganic methods . With using compost you retain and redistribute trace elements too , important for the health of any crop and also it's fullness of flavour and of course it's nutritional content .

This research can and does fuel solutions and these solutions are for our base needs as well as our environment's . Any economy is based solely upon agriculture , and it's when agriculture changes , then everything changes with it . Think of the neolithic period : early humans started to farm , and then all sorts followed with it - furniture , tools , housing , knowledge , and diversification went from there . Again , think of the post war Green Revolution - agriculture became (temporarily) more efficient , and then populations exploded , and economies grew fast , with advent of easily available and cheap food . So think of a time when our species finally becomes in tune with and uses with the actual way that our environment should work , what benefits it will bring us , and the living world itself . If knowledge is power , then even technology has to find its place in the lower orders - it cannot sort the world out but knowledge can , and sometime it will .

Very interesting
Love stuff like this and it doesn't half get you thinking about life intelligence and the things we still have not much knowledge or understanding about

www.theguardian.com...

He pointed to a study of African acacia trees, which shows how they release a chemical when giraffes start eating them, as evidence of how trees communicate. The chemical released drifts through the air warning other trees of the danger and they in turn begin producing toxic chemicals before the giraffe has reached them.

This guys book has upset some scientists!

Some trees might have sex every three to five years and go the toilet once a year. “They have stuff they need to get rid of so they pump their waste into their leaves. When you are walking through a forest in winter time you are walking through tree toilet paper.”

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Thank You for this thread,

As an avid Gardner (completely organic) I find this validating in that I have often thought this same thing.

Rickymouse,
That was highly interesting, thank you for sharing that experiment with us. I'm going to mention it to my old man, he's a retired aviation electrician. He loves tinkering with things like that..



Pthena,
My maple trees definitely pee...




Respectfully,
~meathead

a reply to: Mike Stivic

My maple trees definitely pee...

Do you insert catheters?

But seriously, my favorite tree in the whole wide World, which I haven't seen in 45 years, was an oak. It had a way of clearing the ground around it of all underbrush. I'll have to look up the different kinds of fungus mentioned in the articles.

Somewhere in one of the articles there is mention of a fungus entering into root cells themselves in a symbiotic sort of way. More reading needed. My curiosity is somewhat peeked.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe
Mushrooms eat trees, and are the biggest living organism on earth, according to studies
www.bbc.co.uk...

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

This was Reported / Mentioned Many years back. Apparently the underground Fungi have a habit of actually sending a kind of request out to the roots of said Trees. Once the OK is granted, the Fungi becomes a regular means of water supply whilst the tree in turn does several favours for the Fungi world. If I can find any old Facts , will forward such. At one stage many acres of top soil had been gently rolled back to reveal just how wide spread the hidden sub surface reality is. Terrific and makes more sense than drifting through empty Space.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

www.smithsonianmag.com...

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

www.smithsonianmag.com...

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

www.smithsonianmag.com...

a reply to: pheonix358

My suggestion would be to dive in to back issue bin at comicbook store for old issues of Alan Moore's swamp thing. In these stories there is a planet wide interweb of plant life known as the green. The mind of Alex Holland is after dying during a fire at his lab comes back to life in a body made out of biomass from the swamp. Over the course of the stories it turns out Holland was chosen by the greens ruling body called the parliament of trees to be their elemental champion. It really is a quite good story. But is an interesting concept what if all these connections between plants act like an analog to a brain's neurons and the planet has a consciousness?