All About the Wood Wide Web

Let us take you through a short biology class. As they go through photosynthesis, trees transfer carbohydrates into the earth, offering energy to the ground on which they stand. In exchange, the subsurface fungi link each plant together, ensuring that nutrients are dispersed uniformly across the region and no tree is left behind. This system is popularly dubbed the ‘wood wide web’ and it supplies vital information about all species on our planet. Suzanne Simard of the Mother Tree Project initially uncovered this link in her 1997 PhD thesis. Years later, Professor Thomas Crowther and his colleagues from the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich and Stanford University utilized machine learning to map out the complicated network of fungus and bacteria that connects plants.

This database, which included 28,000 tree species from more than 70 nations, concluded that some germs are only found in certain parts of the globe. Researchers and conservationists will use this knowledge to work out how to restore certain bioregions throughout the world. Climate change’s consequences may also be investigated at a microscopic level. However, the race is on since this species of fungus is the most sensitive to climate warming.

Ectomycorrhizal fungi (or EM) are fungi that surround the roots of trees without piercing them. They are mainly found in cold, dry areas. This permits the bacteria to absorb what they need without interfering with the free flow of data between the trees. This connection is also more successful in combating climate change than the one with its counterpart, arbuscular fungi (or AM), due to the quantity of carbon storage and the slower release mode. AM fungus infiltrates tree roots and generates a quicker carbon cycle in hotter, wetter regions. As the planet warms, forests at higher latitudes are starting to convert from EM to AM, losing their crucial communication network.

“This information will enable researchers scale up from the very tiny to the very huge,” says biologist Dr Merlin Sheldrake. More information is flowing in than ever before, with EM connecting 60% of the world’s 3 trillion trees. Algorithms used in the report could fill in the global map, allowing even sites not included in the research to be computed. Not only will scientists be able to see what is occurring in our ecosystems in real time, but they will also be able to make more precise forecasts about what will happen in the future. This social network of trees and their fungus gives crucial information for halting their and our planet’s deterioration.