26 July 2011

"Mother trees" in a forest ecosystem


Fascinating. More on mycorrhizal networks here.

Via The Dish.

9 comments:

  1. Fascinating indeed. Thank you.

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  2. Hmmm. Interesting observation, but if all that is being "communicated" is CO2, and no action is taken on that communication, I don't see how this is any different than say if rain water rolled off the leaf of one tree to the leaf of another. Which is to say, I think it's a really big stretch to call this communication.

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  3. If the second leaf could say "oh yeah, I don't need this" and rolled it back to the first, then yeah it would be the same. It's an active distribution of resources.

    Something very un-Darwinian. I think it would be incredibly interesting to see what he would say if he were alive.

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  4. @Bill, but aren't they "taking action on this communication" by allocating resources to trees that need it more down the line? It may not be communication as we understand it, but I think it certainly shows the connectivity and complexity of what most consider separate chunks of wood.
    @Anony, in a larger way IT IS Darwinian. Forests stand a better chance for overall survival and health if they are a strong dense community. As she said, they won't succumb so easily to insects, disease, or other stresses.

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  5. Lmao Bill.... That's just ignorant...

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  6. I'm not sure the discovery that materials pass between plants in the same way they pass within plants (osmosis, facilitated diffusion, etc) equates to communication. It is interesting that they are connected in that way, but I think she's taking some liberties with that interpretation. She really lost me when she talked about neurons as if the propogation of a signal based on voltage gradients and ion pumps was somehow metaphysical.

    It's also not unexpected in terms of evolutionary theory. If there isn't any harm to a plant by being part of this network, but there is a benefit, then there's probably no selective pressure against it. There are still other reasons one plant may produce more viable offspring than others, which is what "survival of the fittest" means. It doesn't mean individuals are necessarily acting agonistically toward each other.

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  7. @Tigre, yes I would agree with that. Certainly it is a word usage preference. I had professors use the phrase "communicating" when referring to interactions between various parts of cells. I didn't interrupt that the trees were using code or anything. Just that they were connected, almost like organs in a body.

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  8. a lot of what she says does not compute.

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