
Underground network of microbes that connects trees mapped for first time - rbanffy
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/05/wood-wide-web-underground-network-microbes-connects-trees-mapped-first-time
======
athroway
There's a staggering lot we don't know about plants. It's partly due to their
nightmarish genome complexity (often polyploid), their slow generation time
(taking often decades to mature and reproduce) and the impossibility to
reproduce the complex micro-organism communities found in the soil in which
they thrive.

Much of the cool stuff we know (such as e.g. transmitting responses to stress
to other individuals) we've only learned a couple years ago. This is truly an
exciting time to make discoveries.

~~~
tomaskafka
We also don't know much about humans, for roughly same reasons :).

------
mistrial9
from the paper's synposis, paraphrased -- consider two large groups of trees,
one of which thrives in warm temperatures with moderate to high rainfall,
another which thrives in strong seasonal changes including a cold and dry time
of the year. Each of these two groups has co-evolved with respective microbes
in the soil which do regulate the nutrition available from the roots. The
physical areas in which these microbes appear, can change "relatively
abruptly" over the land, and are sensitive to climate conditions.

The implication is, that if climate conditions like more rain or sustained
hotter temperatures, change rapidly, then the microbes in the soil are
increasingly out of synch with the weather conditions. I would guess that more
stress and increased reproductive failures, to name two extinction drivers,
become more pronounced with less available nutrition from the soils plus the
new weather.

------
Aromasin
If anyone is interested in this topic, Joe Rogan (I know, groan from some) has
a great podcast episode with the mycology expert Paul Stammet where they
discuss this topic. It's the thing that first got me into mycology and
mushroom cultivation. He also has two fantastic Ted Talks if memory serves me
correctly. Well worth a listen.

------
navaati
"Wood Wide Web" _giggles_

------
davedx
Where’s the map?

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Maybe in the paywalled paper:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1128-0](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1128-0)

~~~
kouh
No microbe map in the paper unfortunately, just global maps of where the
samples were taken. Like many papers these days: wonderful titles,
disappointing abstracts and empty conclusions.

------
rblion
As above, so below

------
jasonhansel
Now, we just need to implement TCP/IP on it...

~~~
jsjohnst
Or whatever the “networking protocol” used by the indigenous species on
Pandora (for those who’ve seen the movie Avatar)

~~~
TomMarius
I can't wait for people using brain-computer interfaces to connect to the
treenet

------
NotSammyHagar
Spoilers if you haven't seen the first season. of s.t.d.

It's not the same as the stupid intergalactic Mycelia network on Star Trek
Discovery, but it's a little bit similar. [https://memory-
alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Mycelial_network;](https://memory-
alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Mycelial_network;)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/7sb2r1/what_is_th...](https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/7sb2r1/what_is_the_mycelial_network/).

Spoilers if you haven't seen the first season. of s.t.d.

