Does This Web of Fungi Really Connect The Trees in This Forest?

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.

Transcript

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.