This was really interesting if you have the time:
[The Social Life of Forests]
(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736?mt=2)
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Hey @octobertraveler. It would be great if you can share what you liked about the episode, and include a discussion prompt.
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Sure–it’s an account of Dr. Suzanne Simard’s work on mycorrhizal networks in forests. Simard believes trees may work together rather than just competing against each other for survival. If I understand it correctly, the network makes a forest into a whole entity rather a collection of individual trees. Her work influenced Richard Powers’ The Overstory. Prompt: Given that my background is in literature, and I have a particular interest in world myths, I suppose part of me has always regarded trees as “beings,” and when alone, I’m not beyond greeting a tree with which I’m familiar. :) I wonder how others see forests and trees? And what they think of Dr. Simard’s ideas (which the article suggests are controversial)?
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This was also featured in this week’s New York Times Magazine as an interactive feature:
The Social Life of Forests
Trees appear to communicate and cooperate through subterranean networks of fungi. What are they sharing with one another?
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/02/magazine/tree-communication-mycorrhiza.html
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Reminds me of James Cameron’s Avatar.
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It’s very possible that the forest-mind-network in Avatar was inspired by these interspecies connections in real life…
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