The intelligence of trees
Forests are made of trees and trees stand there, peacefully. But is it what’s above the whole story? In this Radiolab podcast you’ll discover how beautifully intelligent a forest can be
What happens beneath the surface of the ground is sometimes much more interesting than what’s above. This is what the scientist interviewed in this podcast discovered when she looked at the root system of some trees. Like many of us, she had always thought that trees fight against each others to get the best sunny spot and then grow. She realized on the contrary that it’s not like this: first of all, different types of trees don’t compete to grow in spite of others’ lives; on the contrary, they often help each other if someone’s in need. How do they do it? It happens that right beneath the surface of the ground there’s an intricate and complex network connecting all these plants. Yes: they’re not alone but they are instead a community. And they act like that: if a tree is in need, others help it, bringing food. If a tree is about to die, it deviates its intake towards other trees. And that’s not the whole story yet: unlike what often happens in our society, weak and younger trees are the ones that usually get more help from older and stronger trees.
It’s fair to say that there is a kind of intelligence in this: trees in a forest belong to a real network that works for the well-being of the whole community.
How does this happen? We were taught that roots can be very huge but could they be so broad and extensive to actually connect entire communities of plants in a forest? The magic happens thanks to fungi that act like parasites: they need the plant to get sugar to grow, but they exchange salts and minerals with it at the same time. A tree couldn’t grow so tall and strong if it wasn’t for the minerals it gets from fungi. That same web of fungi is what connects plant to plant in a forest, just like neurons are connected via synapses. Intelligence is made of connections and teamwork, we should say.
