When you walk in the woods, what is happening beneath your feet s amazing? We’re talking about fungi.
As a result of a growing body of evidence, many biologists have started using the term “wood wide web” to describe the communications services that fungi provide to plants and other organisms.
Trees talk and share resources right under our feet, using a fungal network nicknamed the Wood Wide Web.
All trees form a symbiotic association with below-ground fungi, these are fungi that are useful for the plants and explore the soil.point 222 |
The fungi send mycelium, through the soil.point 36 | The mycelium picks up nutrients and water, provide them back to the plant, and exchanges the nutrients and water for sugar or other substance made by photosynthesis from the plant.point 187 | point 189 | 1
“It’s the first time that we’ve been able to understand the world beneath our feet, but at a global scale,” Thomas Crowther, an author of the study from ETH Zurich, told the BBC. “Just like an MRI scan of the brain helps us to understand how the brain works, this global map of the fungi beneath the soil helps us to understand how global ecosystems work.
“What we find is that certain types of microorganisms live in certain parts of the world, and by understanding that we can figure out how to restore different types of ecosystems and also how the climate is changing,” he said.
Fungi connect trees, helps them to share resources, call for help, and even wage war on each other.
Scientists also found that the trees who are dying may dump their resources into the network. And if a bug attacks a tree, it can release chemical signals through their roots. Those signals travel through the network, warning other trees to activate defenses.
Certain types of orchids, for example, may hack the network in an attempt to steal resources from nearby trees. The black walnut tree spreads toxic chemicals to hurt or kill nearby plants.