You have probably felt the wood wide web before when you are in a forest and it all goes silent but things feel alive. There’s an omnipresence and the wiggling leaves sound like a quiet whisper. And they could be whispering in a way! Trees in a forest communicate all kinds of things to each other through their roots and the tiny fungi that connects trees like synapses in a brain.
*Trees in a forest live in a symbiotic relationships with mycorrhizal fungi. In exchange for sugar, fungi help the tree gather water and nutrients and connect plants to each other. The connections are immense and connect all trees in a forest to each other ~
I am not sure exactly what trees have to communicate to each other, but their main use seems to be for protection. For example if a deer eats the leaves of a tree in a network, the tree will not only protect itself by releasing enzymes that would make its leaves taste unappealing for the deer. The tree also will send signals to other trees in the network and warn them about the deer. Then the whole wood wide web can protect itself and drive any predators away.
Although it might be in the tree’s best interest to keep the forest safe, trees are generally altruistic beings and will act in ways that benefit the longevity of their peers even if it means it could cause a little damage to itself in the short term.
In a large forest there are different types of soil, with varying amounts of nutrients, light and water. Yet trees tend to grow quite equal to each other. This is because more privileged trees with better resources will share their supplies with more vulnerable trees.
Its as if they knew that they are better off if the whole forest flourishes rather than just the more privileged trees. And if conditions happened to change for the fortunate trees after a drought or a flood, then other trees will return the favor and help them out! That’s so neat.
Trees like everything else, do not choose where to sprout. Conditions have to be just right for a plant to sprout and even then, they are extremely vulnerable when they are starting to develop.The few leaves of a small tree are fresh and juicy and at the ideal height for predators to take a bite of its tasty morsels. They are also too short to even absorb enough filtered sunlight when they are at the bottom of the canopy. So most of them can’t even photosynthesize enough light to make their own food. There are so many things that could prevent a plant from sprouting and growing in the wild, it’s really incredible that they do and overcome so much in order to grow. The secret is that they don’t grow alone and need a lot of help at first. Baby trees are sort of adopted by a parent who is connected to them and will help them grow. The older tree will feed it until they are tall enough to create their own food and survive on their own.
The way trees communicate and care for each other seems surprisingly social, and a lot like the ideal social/economic model i’d like us to live in. Helping the most vulnerably seems like the natural way a network should function. Maybe this is why trees live as long as they do. Trees living individually outside of a wood wide web, such as a city a tree, will not live nearly as long as they would in a forest. When they are not connected to other trees, they have to provide everything for themselves. If there’s not enough water or nutrients where they are planted, then they slowly start dying.
It’s hard not to compare the benefits of the wood wide web to the real life benefits of caring for the people in our networks. I often feel that by living in an individualist society we have lost the connections between the most vulnerable, the ones fortunate enough to have all the resources they need and the ones in between. I hope that by learning about different networks like the wood wide web, we make like trees and fix our webs!
I learnt about the wood wide web by listening to the Radio Lab Podcast ‘From Tree to Shining Tree’ http://www.radiolab.org/story/from-tree-to-shining-tree/
And later on by reading Peter Wohlleben’s 'The Hidden Life of Trees, What They Feel, How They Communicate’. Both sources discuss findings on the social lives of trees and their underground connections. There’s heaps of literature on the subject. Like this is a legit thing! We need to start applying this knowledge to our own social systems.
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