Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures

by Merlin Sheldrake

In some cases, it appears to make little difference to a plant whether it has its own private fungal network or whether it shares a fungal network with other plants—although in these situations the fungus still benefits from forming a shared network by gaining access to a larger number of plant partners. In some cases, belonging to a shared network can bring outright disadvantages to plants. Fungi are in control of the supply of minerals they obtain from the soil and can preferentially trade these nutrients with their larger plant partners, which are both more abundant sources of carbon and stronger sinks for soil minerals. These asymmetries can magnify the competitive advantage of larger plants over smaller plants that share the network. In these situations, smaller plants start to benefit only when their connections to the network are severed, or when the bigger plants that share the network—and which have been extracting a disproportionately large quantity of nutrients—are cut back.