The Trees Have Something to Say
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Dr. Suzanne Simard, scientific researcher into how trees communicate with one another. |
Trees are communicating with one another, says Suzanne Simard, Professor of Forest and Conservation Sciences at the University of British Columbia, and what they're sharing is vital information about how to keep the whole forest healthy. Spreading among the roots of trees and connecting them, Simard has discovered a complex underground web of delicate, threadlike fungi. Moving carbon, water, and nutrients among the trees, this network connects young trees and old ones, healthy trees and those under stress. Simard also found that the trees are not just randomly passing these substances to one another, but directing them specifically toward the plants that most need them. "Plants are not individuals," she explains. "They are a community helping one another to survive." When big trees, which Simard calls "mother trees," are cut down through careless forestry practices, the entire ecosystem is deprived of a vital source of energy and regeneration. Yet even as the big trees are dying, they continue to shuttle resources into trees that are still living, so as to allow the entire process to continue. This is a Radical Joy for Hard Times story, both because it invites us to consider the life that may still be ongoing in a forest that appears to be dead... and in this moment to feel both the sorrow for what is gone and the persistence of life. (Thanks for Andrea Friedmann for this story.)
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