Year: 2022

FRAGMENT IN NATURE continues this weekend with the ancient and immense association between plant roots and mycorrhizal fungi. These symbiotic relationships are much more complex than initially envisioned, and bridge species, and can play a key role in developing giant plant ecosystems. These underground networks are also vast communication systems between plants. View in LinkedIn

IMMENSE FUNGAL NETWORKS. "By some estimates, a typical mycorrhizal fungal filament is hundreds or thousand times the length of one tree root. Not only that, fungal filaments can anastomose with those of other species to craft what potentially is an indefinitely large network. We can only imagine what area such networks may encompass-who knows, they may literally span entire continents." https://lnkd.in/e4xrzsX View in LinkedIn

OLD GIANT FUNGAL MAT. "A mycelial “mat,” which scientists think of as one entity, can be thousands of acres in size. The largest organism in the world is a mycelial mat in eastern Oregon that covers 2,200 acres and is more than two thousand years old." https://lnkd.in/eZ8w9KH View in LinkedIn

SENTIENT BEINGS. "These mycelial mats are neurological networks. They’re sentient, they’re aware, and they’re highly evolved. They have external stomachs, which produce enzymes and acids to digest nutrients outside the mycelium, and then bring in those compounds that it needs for nutrition." https://lnkd.in/eZ8w9KH View in LinkedIn

A WORLD BENEATH. "As you walk through a forest, you break twigs underneath your feet, and the mycelium surges upward to capture those newly available nutrients as quickly as possible." https://lnkd.in/eZ8w9KH View in LinkedIn

UNDERGROUND WORLD. "Some of the largest and most complex natural networks can be found in the soil. Among the most abundant are the hyphal networks formed in the symbiosis between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), which can extend for kilometres underground." https://lnkd.in/eSPrxUj View in LinkedIn

FOREST may be viewed as giant communities of many species whose roots are interconnected by fungi, spreading very large distances. https://lnkd.in/eJX6RMd View in LinkedIn

FUNGAL NEURAL NETWORK. "I have long proposed that mycelia are the earth’s “natural Internet.” I’ve gotten some flak for this, but recently scientists in Great Britain have published papers about the “architecture” of a mycelium — how it’s organized." https://lnkd.in/eZ8w9KH View in LinkedIn

FOREST INTERNET OF THINGS. "They focused on the nodes of crossing, which are the branchings that allow the mycelium, when there is a breakage or an infection, to choose an alternate route and regrow. There’s no one specific point on the network that can shut the whole operation down." https://lnkd.in/eZ8w9KH View in LinkedIn

WOOD-WIDE-WEB of fungal associations with plant roots. A comprehensive review. https://lnkd.in/eNTyQfc View in LinkedIn