Earth's Natural Internet

I talked a little of Mycelia before – being used to break down dangerous compounds and provide the wealth of nutrients and minerals needed for sustained plant growth on the planet; of which correlates to all life on the planet. But their qualities don't stop there, it has been found, within just a few decades, that there existed a semblance between plant life, a sentience which pervaded the attributes of our understanding of plants. How were they communicating? That was until looking under the soil provided us with clues, clues which have given us enough information to comfortably say that we humans were not the first to create the internet, plants were. The original internet; a network of life which beds the ground throughout the plant kingdom; providing nutrients and information for glucose. The bodies of most fungi are made up of tiny threads known as mycelium, linking roots to different plants. Essentially, these mycelia are the corridors and network system of the plant kingdom, wrapping their tendrils throughout the root system like neuron pathways in the brain.

Like Pandora in Avatar, information is retained, encoded and exchanged through channels we can't see or necessarily understand, but operate on an altogether other level of intelligence. It would be nice to be able to interlock our hair with the network, but i'm afraid we don't have that ability yet. We are just able to see the results of this network, but not able to see real-time the exchange...yet. And, if we could, would we risk to connect for the chance of being told at how badly we have abused nature, and receive a few thousand year pent up scolding from the natural world at our clumsy disregard for our home. It's phenomenal this interconnectedness amongst the organisms on this planet. I've talked of this before, but this is another prime example of the hidden tapestry of life – with each entity becoming part of a larger network.

What the shit is this 'network'?

So what exactly is this network? Well, around 90% of land plants are in mutually-beneficial relationships with fungi. In mycorrhizal associations, plants provide fungi with food in the form of carbohydrates, in exchange, the fungi help the plants suck up water, and provide nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen, via their mycelia. Since the 1960s, it has been clear that mycorrhizae help individual plants to grow, but it wasn't clear to what extent this network reverberated throughout nature and what else was exchanged along the way. The amounting evidence is showing clear intelligence between plants in terms of payment systems and resource management. By linking to the fungal network they can help out their neighbours by sharing nutrients and information – or sabotage unwelcome plants by spreading toxic chemicals through the network. If it's within their interests, large trees may actively help out small saps/seedlings which are set in areas of shadow in amongst the heavy tree lines through the Mycorrhizae with carbon and glucose. In a 1997 study, (Suzanne Simard, 'Net transfer of carbon between ectomycorrhizal tree species in the field') seedlings in the shade (which are likely to be short of food), got more carbon from donor trees than those not in the shade. Several other experiments have taken place with Mycelia and tomato plants; where spraying an Alternaria Solani on the leaves to find out if communication happens between the plants in the root systems as a form of resistance. The results of which determined that with the plants with Mycelia, they were much less likely to get blight, and had significantly lower levels of damage.

"These plants are not really individuals in the sense that Darwin thought they were individuals competing for survival of the fittest," says Simard in the 2011 documentary 'Do Trees Communicate?' "In fact they are interacting with each other, trying to help each other survive."

However, the use of this 'internet' isn't always for the best of reasons, as like ours, we have viruses pervading the internet to sabotage others and revel in their misfortune, this fungal connectivity also is susceptible to cyber crime, terrorism, and even warfare. When it comes to 'us or them', plants have similar ways of going about it when resources are scarce. Well, they can't wield baseball bats and hurl verbal abuse towards their competitors, but they can send chemicals to disarm others and harm competition when it's in their interest. The Phantom Orchid, for example, does not have the chlorophyll necessary for photosynthesis and must leech the necessary nutrients for survival from surrounding plants. Other plants, such as the Golden Marigold and the American Black Walnut Tree have been found to release toxins into the network to hinder the growth of surrounding plants in the fight for water and light.

Sum up

Thinking about this system and some of the other ways plants can communicate, you wonder how much we miss every day from simply not being able to understand their language. There is intelligence deeper than the human mind, and it doesn't necessarily take a brain to be able to want to survive. Survival instincts and communication begun far before we even graced the trees, and will likely continue after we have disgraced the planet. Instead of thinking ourselves above the grade of the flora, we should come to terms with the idea that we, in fact were a product of it. Our medicine and food comes from nature, so we should learn to understand it better and not shun it like it's some kind of hindrance.

As i said in a previous post, our minds came from nature...

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Gold leaves:

Money doesn't grow on trees... doesn't it?

On the subject of that which is out of sight, and hinges on plants to tell us what's going on, gold is an element which is featuring more in the pursuits of botanists. You wouldn't necessarily connect the two, but botany can tell us a lot as to what goes on underground. Botanists, geologists and various other scientists are involved in projects around the world to find clues as to where natural resources are. People will always want and 'need' precious resources; Gold is one of them. Not only for being visually appealing, and immensely valuable, it is also a great conductor of electricity with virtually no resistance, and doesn't 'tarnish' so is used in many electrical components/devices. In the aerospace industry where reliable and effective technologies are key to survival, gold plays an essential role. Gold is used to lubricate mechanical parts, conduct electricity and coat the insides of space vehicles to protect people inside from infrared radiation and heat.

So what's this got to do with botanists and finding gold. Well, from examining closely leaves and such of plants, you can discover many things about what's happening under the soil. In a leaf there's not always just chlorophyll and carbon, but minerals and unwanted elements can be found in the leaves too. The plant absorbs water and minerals through its root system, and in doing so, sucks up unwanted elements too, which are poisonous to the plant, so pumped to the leaves, whereby, the leaves will fall off in winter and be rid of the substance altogether. When gold is found in the leaves, you know there are gold deposits under the soil, so when data collecting, you find those leaves with the most amount of gold in them and try to localise the area so that you can mine the area without destroying acres and acres of forest in a blind search. Being much more precise is incredibly useful in efficiency and waste management.

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In addition, here is a nice poem on mushrooms; the internet provider of the natural world:

Poem:

'Mushroom' (Sylvia Plath)

Overnight, very Whitely, discreetly, Very quietly Our toes, our noses Take hold on the loam, Acquire the air. Nobody sees us, Stops us, betrays us; The small grains make room. Soft fists insist on Heaving the needles, The leafy bedding, Even the paving. Our hammers, our rams, Earless and eyeless, Perfectly voiceless, Widen the crannies, Shoulder through holes. We Diet on water, On crumbs of shadow, Bland-mannered, asking Little or nothing. So many of us! So many of us! We are shelves, we are Tables, we are meek, We are edible, Nudgers and shovers In spite of ourselves. Our kind multiplies: We shall by morning Inherit the earth. Our foot's in the door.