Eureka! Mycorrhiza
August 2, 2016 9:31 AM   Subscribe

Do trees communicate with each other? "If you're a mother and you have children, you recognise your children and you treat them in certain ways. We're finding that trees will do the same thing. They'll adjust their competitive behaviour to make room for their own kin and they send those signals through mycorrhizal networks."
posted by jillithd (21 comments total) 38 users marked this as a favorite
 
I think we all owe M. Night Shyamalan a big apology...
posted by Naberius at 9:33 AM on August 2, 2016 [3 favorites]


The latest Radiolab podcast covers these "fungus tubes". It's humbling to realize how primitive our knowledge of trees and soil really is. The episode is called "From Tree to Shining Tree"
posted by pleem at 9:41 AM on August 2, 2016 [4 favorites]


When I was a young sapling and went off to college my mother also sent me a care package of cookies through a mycorrhizal network.

Nice telepathic space dragons allusion in the thread title btw
posted by XMLicious at 9:42 AM on August 2, 2016 [3 favorites]


I just listened to the RadioLab podcast this morning. Amazing.
posted by tippiedog at 9:51 AM on August 2, 2016


Radiolab's "From Tree to Shining Tree" on Fanfare
posted by jazon at 10:27 AM on August 2, 2016


Nice post title, jillithd.
posted by biogeo at 10:29 AM on August 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


I could not stop thinking of this while watching Stranger Things last weekend. Then I listened to the podcast yesterday, and today this is in metafiler.

Let's say that in my youth I used to use certain bare headed mushrooms to communicate with strange entities, and I feel like they are calling. And it is the best part of mushroom season in San Isidro Mazatepec....

A pretty safe bet to make is that in the decades to come we (science) will move more and more away from the idea of separate and distinct individuals and towards a view of a web of interconnected life. Guess we will need a pretty big Noah's ark of microorganisms and viruses to kick-start our Mars colonies.
posted by Doroteo Arango II at 10:41 AM on August 2, 2016 [6 favorites]


Gesundheit!
posted by praemunire at 10:43 AM on August 2, 2016


The trees certainly communicate on Pandora. I saw that once.
posted by bz at 10:49 AM on August 2, 2016


Or as Jack Handey put it,
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.
posted by Mchelly at 10:51 AM on August 2, 2016 [11 favorites]


The trees? Those useless trees? They never said that you were leaving.
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:07 AM on August 2, 2016


THE TREES ARE EATING SALMON AND THE FUNGUS IS MINING INSECTS ALIVE FOR THEIR BODILY FLUIDS.

Metal.
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:22 AM on August 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


The hidden life of trees
posted by yoHighness at 11:36 AM on August 2, 2016 [2 favorites]


Every tree needs a hug.

Tree sitting since 1930
posted by bukvich at 12:35 PM on August 2, 2016


Maples have always wanted more sunlight, but their pleas have continually been ignored by the oaks. Like them, I wonder why the maples can't be happy in their shade.
posted by davebush at 1:43 PM on August 2, 2016 [2 favorites]


I wonder what the radioactive forests in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone are saying.
posted by tobascodagama at 3:54 PM on August 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm not overly surprised to learn this. Some years ago I worked at a place where in back there were three live oak trees. A large older one in the middle and a smaller younger tree to either side, and what was striking about them was that the two younger trees grew at rather precarious angles because of the slope of the land and to cope for this (seemingly?), the larger oak in the middle had branches grown to support them both -- literally looking like a parent holding on to her two children. I thought it was just whimsy on my part to think the large older one grew specifically to accommodate the other two, but perhaps not.
posted by SA456 at 4:45 PM on August 2, 2016 [4 favorites]


Favorited for title alone.
posted by Sand at 6:38 PM on August 2, 2016 [2 favorites]


It would be interesting if the natural deadfall pattern of trees in mixed species forests favored conspecifics.
posted by yesster at 7:49 PM on August 2, 2016


Thanks for this link! The implications are really interesting. A forest is ... the internet?
posted by Termite at 12:41 AM on August 3, 2016


A forest is ... the internet?

The wood wide web.
posted by pracowity at 10:45 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


« Older anadramous techbros   |   For Men* Who Desperately Need Autonomy Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments