Beiler’s maps are striking. Fungal networks sprawl over tens of meters, but trees are not linked evenly. Young trees have few connections, and older trees have many. The most well-connected tree is linked to forty-seven other trees and would have been linked to two hundred fifty others if the plot had been larger than it was. If one uses a finger to jump from tree to tree across the network—which is, of course, a plant-centric thing to do—one doesn’t trickle through the forest evenly. One skips across the network through a small number of well-connected older trees. Via these “hubs,” it’s
...more
