The forest has
an underground.
The Institute for Fungal Networks studies the mycorrhizal web — the fungal threads that trade sugar, water and warnings between trees. One is growing across this page right now, hunting the buried nutrients.
Click the soil to inoculate a new colony.
Trees talk.
This is the wire.
90%of land plants live in partnership with a fungus — the exceptions are the weird ones
1 kmof hyphae in a single gram of healthy forest soil
×20more carbon moved to a shaded seedling through the network when its neighbours have sun to spare
2,400 ythe age of the Oregon honey fungus — Earth's largest known organism
Current fieldwork.
PLOT-07
Year 3 of 10
The mother-tree ledger
Isotope tracing of sugar transfers from veteran firs to their shaded descendants.
PLOT-11
Instrumented
Alarm chemistry
How fast does an aphid warning cross forty metres of soil? (Current record: four hours.)
PLOT-13
Longitudinal
The clearcut scar
What happens to a network when its hubs are removed. Early data: nothing good.