How trees are co-operators not competitors
Suzanne Simard is an ecologist who has conducted 30 years research into Canadian forests and last year she made an exciting discovery that trees communicate in ways that are not dissimilar from human interaction. In her illuminating Tedtalk she discussed her theory that trees do in fact talk.
Her theory was that forests can behave as single organisms and her results showed that far from being the fierce competitors for light and resources that we previously thought, trees are actually some of the best co-operators of all organisms.
Trees are connected with mycelium (put simply threads of fungus) that grows through the soil and coats the soil particles. There can be many hundreds of kilometres of mycelium under every footstep and it is this dense web which facilitates lively conversation between trees.
Suzanne’s research found that not only do trees help their own species through providing carbon, nitrogen, hormones and other information but they also help other species of tree. For example Douglas Fir and Paper Birch seem to have a symbiotic relationship whereby the fir transmits carbon to the birch in the summer months when it has an excess and the birch back to the fir in the winter when it has lost its leaves and needs less for itself.
Not only this but Suzanne discovered that there are hub or mother trees in the network who are responsible for nurturing the young saplings as they grow. The research found that mother trees can recognise their own kin and will send them more carbon, create bigger mycelial networks and even reduce their own root competition to make space for their young. Not only this but when hub trees die, they send both carbon and important defence compounds to their seedlings to help increase the resilience of the forest as a whole. Mother trees increase seedling survival by up to 4 times.
So what does this mean?
It means we need to take greater interest in our local forests. We need to take responsibility for helping them cope with climate change and we need individually tailored forestry programmes delivered locally rather than a one size fits all approach. We need better management of our logging and felling processes to ensure that mother trees are preserved and allowed to pass on their vital resources and information to their young.
We need to save our older forests as these are the ones full to bursting with mycelial networks, genes and hub trees and it means we need to consider how we plant our forests so that they have the diversity of species that will allow the forests to naturally regenerate and subsequently utilise their extraordinary power to self heal. This research has the power to shape a whole new approach to forestry and in the year that has passed since Suzanne’s tedtalk, has already begun to do so.
We think of forests as just collections of trees but what this research has found, is that they are complex systems of hubs and networks that communicate, cooperate and care for each other in ways that are much more like people than plant.
Photo by Abigail Keenan