invisible interconnections

They are invisible only as we take them for granted, but visible if we really look out for them.

Since Darwin, we have generally thought of trees as striving, disconnected loners, competing for water, nutrients and sunlight, with the winners shading out the losers and sucking them dry. The timber industry in particular sees forests as wood-producing systems and battlegrounds for survival of the fittest.

There is now a substantial body of scientific evidence that refutes that idea. It shows instead that trees of the same species are communal, and will often form alliances with trees of other species. Forest trees have evolved to live in cooperative, interdependent relationships, maintained by communication and a collective intelligence similar to an insect colony. These soaring columns of living wood draw the eye upward to their outspreading crowns, but the real action is taking place underground, just a few inches below our feet.

“Some are calling it the ‘wood-wide web,’” says Wohlleben in German-accented English. “All the trees here, and in every forest that is not too damaged, are connected to each other through underground fungal networks. Trees share water and nutrients through the networks, and also use them to communicate. They send distress signals about drought and disease, for example, or insect attacks, and other trees alter their behavior when they receive these messages.”

~ Do Trees Talk To Each Other?

How little we know about our ecosystem and the world which is doing the wonderful job of connecting, healing and creating life….

Wishing this documentary Fantastic Fungi encourages some to work more on them…. our forests hold their great wealth, of which so much is still unknown….

This documentary is now available on Netflix.

Described as

A descriptive time-lapse journey about the magical, mysterious and medicinal world of fungi and their power to heal, sustain and contribute to the regeneration of life on Earth that began 3.5 billion years ago.

Here’s an excerpt…

A TED talk by Paul Stamets…

Its not just trees but all of us living beings who are interconnected in our own ways.

Next time we walk in the outdoors, lets note what’s on the floor as well 🙂 Let the forests survive to make room for more such intelligent things to evolve…..