Biologists set out to pin down the existence of a vast, underground network of fungi connecting trees in a forest. Here’s what they found.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Do trees have their own internet?
00:06It may sound wild, but an underground network of fungi may allow trees to communicate across
00:10vast distances.
00:12Such mycorrhizal networks could share resources, like water and nitrogen, as well as warnings
00:17about insect predators.
00:19A team of biologists from Canada and the U.S. made this the focus of their own myth-busting
00:23study, taking into account over 1,500 scientific papers and tallying up the number of claims
00:29based on flimsy evidence.
00:31The verdict?
00:32Such claims of a wood-wide web may in fact be overblown.
00:35While fungi are known to form interdependent relationships with trees by living within
00:39plant roots or in nearby soil, there's simply not enough evidence to indicate that vast,
00:44complex resource-sharing networks exist.
00:46To date, only five studies have been performed across only two forest types to map out the
00:51fungi and trees in a forest.
00:53While some positive results have been produced artificially, it's hard to rule out alternative
00:56explanations in such studies.
00:58The findings published in Nature Ecology and Evolution call for a more critical eye when
01:03it comes to submitting research.
01:04Let us devise new experiments, demand better evidence, think critically about alternative
01:08explanations for results, and become more selective with the claims we disseminate.
01:13If not, we risk turning the wood-wide web into a fantasy beneath our feet.