Friday 22 October 2021

The Wood Wide Web and Finding the Mother Tree.

 As I wandered through the ancient birch and oak woodland of the Woodland Trust's section of Nettleton Woods, my mind was full of Dr. Suzanne Simard's book Finding the Mother Tree which I found incredibly moving, both on a personal level as well as a scientific one.  She is best known for the research she has done on the underground networks of forests characterised by mycorrhizal fungi and roots.  She worked out how these fungi and roots facilitate communication and interaction between the trees and plants of an ecosystem.  Within the communication between trees and plants is the exchange of carbon, water, nutrients and defence signals between trees.  In 1997 the journal Nature referred to this discovery as the Wood Wide Web.  Simard has since identified something called a hub tree or 'mother tree'.  Mother trees are the largest trees in forests that act as central hubs for the mycorrhizal networks.  A mother tree supports seedlings by infecting them with fungi and supplying them with nutrients as they grow.  She discovered that Douglas Firs provide carbon to baby firs and that there was more carbon sent to baby firs that came from that specific mother tree.  However she also found that mother trees were using the fungal web to support other tree species.  Simard was the primary inspiration for the scientist, Patricia Westford, who, like Simard, was ridiculed by fellow scientists and forest managers before eventually being vindicated, in Richard Powers' 2018 Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Overstory, also an excellent and moving book.

As I wandered through Nettleton indulging myself in the therapeutic Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku or forest bathing  I couldn't help but wonder at the amazing world, not only around me, but beneath my feet.  As I walked I kept my eyes open for the Mother Trees, some ancient and venerable oaks and birches being prime candidates.  One purpose of today's visit was to look for fly agaric toadstools which I found in the same place as last year.  Although poisonous to us, fly agaric forms mycorrizhal associations with a range of trees, notably birch and and pine, both part of the community of Nettleton Woods.

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Fly agaric
Fly agaric
Fly agaric
Dead Wood, particularly standing dead wood, is an importand part of a forest ecosystem.
Autumn colours
Scots Pine and birch woodland
Scots Pine and birch woodland
Scots Pine and birch woodland
Scots Pine and birch woodland

Cots pine with ancient oaks showing behind.
Scots Pine and birch woodland
Scots Pine and birch woodland
Birch and pine leaves.
A Mother Tree?
A Mother Tree?
Ancient birch woodland
Ancient birch woodland
Ancient birch woodland
Ancient birch woodland
The spirit of the trees.
Woodland path (a Shul)
Ancient birch woodland
Ancient birch woodland
Birch and pine woodland
Unknown fungus
Puffball.

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