mushrooms are pretty great right
delicious on pizza high in antioxidants
summer even magical so random question
what do mushrooms have to do with
talking treats actually that answer
leads to a pretty crazy story about how
fungi and a Geiger counter can prove
trees talk let’s take a deeper look at
how the Geiger counter and the talking
our story starts underground beneath the
trees that make up forests lies a vast
network of roots supporting these trees
the roots soak up water and send
nutrients up throughout the tree but did
you know that within those root systems
arose a ton of fungus one teaspoon of
forest soil contains miles of fungal
filaments this fungus actually connects
the trees to each other forming a
complex the complicated web of
relationships and kinship networks
scientists call it the wood wide web
hashtag science jokes as a part of this
Wood wide web fungi get sugar that
forest trees photosynthesize from
sunlight and the trees in return get
minerals from the fungi but even more
awesome than the direct trade between
fungi and tree root systems is the
network of trees itself not only do
trees share water and nutrients with
each other – this wood wide web they
[Music]
okay that’s not what it’s like trees
actually send distress signals to each
other about drought disease and insect
attacks and other neighboring trees even
altered their behavior when they receive
these messages even crazier there’s a
hierarchy to these talking trees mother
trees are the biggest and oldest trees
in the forests they share water and
nutrients and pumped sugar into the
roots of young saplings it’s a tough
world out there ice like wildfires
floods insects so it’s rays form
alliances they’ve evolved to help each
other survive how did anyone even figure
out the trees can talk in the first
place using carbon-14 scientists have
actually been able to trace tree talk
with this radioactive carbon dioxide gas
it’s like that game a telephone
only underground the signal is traceable
through the mother tree into the soil
across the forest floor and into a
little seedling the radiation doesn’t
fan out instead it follows pathways to
specific trees and these findings have
profound implications on how we manage
but that’s not the whole story
for more watch new episodes of Explorer on National Geographic
delicious on pizza high in antioxidants
summer even magical so random question
what do mushrooms have to do with
talking treats actually that answer
leads to a pretty crazy story about how
fungi and a Geiger counter can prove
trees talk let’s take a deeper look at
how the Geiger counter and the talking
our story starts underground beneath the
trees that make up forests lies a vast
network of roots supporting these trees
the roots soak up water and send
nutrients up throughout the tree but did
you know that within those root systems
arose a ton of fungus one teaspoon of
forest soil contains miles of fungal
filaments this fungus actually connects
the trees to each other forming a
complex the complicated web of
relationships and kinship networks
scientists call it the wood wide web
hashtag science jokes as a part of this
Wood wide web fungi get sugar that
forest trees photosynthesize from
sunlight and the trees in return get
minerals from the fungi but even more
awesome than the direct trade between
fungi and tree root systems is the
network of trees itself not only do
trees share water and nutrients with
each other – this wood wide web they
[Music]
okay that’s not what it’s like trees
actually send distress signals to each
other about drought disease and insect
attacks and other neighboring trees even
altered their behavior when they receive
these messages even crazier there’s a
hierarchy to these talking trees mother
trees are the biggest and oldest trees
in the forests they share water and
nutrients and pumped sugar into the
roots of young saplings it’s a tough
world out there ice like wildfires
floods insects so it’s rays form
alliances they’ve evolved to help each
other survive how did anyone even figure
out the trees can talk in the first
place using carbon-14 scientists have
actually been able to trace tree talk
with this radioactive carbon dioxide gas
it’s like that game a telephone
only underground the signal is traceable
through the mother tree into the soil
across the forest floor and into a
little seedling the radiation doesn’t
fan out instead it follows pathways to
specific trees and these findings have
profound implications on how we manage
but that’s not the whole story
for more watch new episodes of Explorer on National Geographic
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