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Then he became furious. “You have no idea how these forests work!”
WHT TF IS HIS ISSUE
The belief that competition was the only plant-to-plant interaction that mattered was so strong that when I submitted manuscripts for publication, it felt as if my experiments were being picked apart, bit by bit, for mistakes that weren’t there.
Later another of my graduate students, Kevin, would return to this patch and sequence the DNA of almost every Rhizopogon truffle and tree—and find that most of the trees were linked together by the Rhizopogon mycelium, and that the biggest, oldest trees were connected to almost all of the younger ones in their neighborhood. One tree was linked to forty-seven others, some of them twenty meters away.
The old trees were the mothers of the forest. The hubs were Mother Trees.
This Mother Tree was the central hub that the saplings and seedlings nested around, with threads of different fungal species, of different colors and weights, linking them, layer upon layer, in a strong, complex web.
like the neurons in our brains,
The signals between the trees could be as sharp as the electrochemical impulses between neurons, the brain chemistry that allows us to think and communicate. Is it possible that the trees are as perceptive of their neighbors as we are of our own thoughts and moods?
It occurred to me that the amount of carbon transferred relative to nitrogen was strikingly similar to their respective quantities in molecules of an amino acid called glutamate.
Glutamate was the most abundant neurotransmitter in the human brain, and it set the stage for other neurotransmitters to develop. It was even more abundant than serotonin, whose carbon-to-nitrogen ratio was only slightly greater.
Human neurotransmitter --> forest neurotransmitter ???
How similar could the mycorrhizal network really be to a neural network?
both neural networks and mycorrhizal networks transmit information molecules across synapses.
monoterpenes
LOLOLOL kinda something im gonna research but only terpenes
oatmeal cookies
NO
How do mycorrhizal networks affect the regeneration of trees in our changing climate?
The firs had sent warning signals that the forest was in danger, and the pines had been poised, eavesdropping for clues, wired to receive the messages, ensuring the community remained whole, still a healthy place to rear their offspring.
This cancer diagnosis was telling me I needed to slow down, grow a backbone, and speak out about what I’d learned from the trees.
Don was right—I should never have pursued the university job. And God knows I shouldn’t have sprayed Roundup in those early experiments, or missed checking the safety latch on the neutron probe, or forgotten to press down the nose clips on the dust mask when I was grinding the radioactive seedlings. And all that stress over the breakdown of my marriage surely did not help.
KNEW THIS ALREADYYY
Kin-recognition molecules seem to have carbon and micronutrients.”
If we are equal to everything in nature, do we share the same goals in death?
In each pot, she planted three seedlings: two kin and one stranger, with one of the kin seedlings designated as her “Mother Tree.” The idea was that, once injured, the Mother Tree would have a choice of where to send the last of her energy: to her kin, the stranger, or into the earth.
Climate change and a warming Pacific Ocean have created new problems by exhausting the fish on their marathon from the ocean, reducing their success at reaching the natal spawning streams.
Secwepemc principal of k̓wseltktnews (translated as “we are all related”) or the Salish concept of nə́c̓aʔmat ct (“we are one”).
They perceive, relate, and communicate; they exercise various behaviors. They cooperate, make decisions, learn, and remember—qualities we normally ascribe to sentience, wisdom, intelligence.
We can continue pushing our earth out of balance, with greenhouse gases accelerating each year, or we can regain balance by acknowledging that if we harm one species, one forest, one lake, this ripples through the entire complex web.
