나무들도 소통한다

 

브리티시 컬럼비아 대학의 수잔 시마드 교수와 동료들이 나무와 식물들이 서로 교류하고 상호작용 한다는 것을 발견했다. 그들은 땅 밑에서 나무와 식물들의 생태계를 연결시켜주는 균류(菌類)의 네트워크를 발견했다. 이런 공존의 방식으로 그들은 의도적으로 자원을 공유하고, 숲이 번성하도록 돕는다는 것이다.

또 큰 나무는 이런 균류의 네트워크를 통해 어린 나무들을 돕고 있으며, 만일 이런 도움이 없다면 어린 나무는 생존이 어려울 수도 있다는 것이다. 그렇다면 옛날 당산나무라고 해서 거목들을 보호하고 신성시했는데, 그것이 합리적인 행동이었다는 말이 된다.

 

 

Trees Communicate

 

 

By Jane Engelsiepen, October 8, 2012

 

“Mother Trees” Use Fungal Communication Systems to Preserve Forests

 

Suzanne Simard, forest ecologist at the University of British Columbia, and her colleagues have made the major discovery that trees and plants really do communicate and interact with each other. She discovered an underground web of fungi connecting the trees and plants of an ecosystem. This symbiosis enables the purposeful sharing of resources, consequently helping the whole system of trees and plants to flourish.

 

 

Simard was lead to the discovery by the observation of webs of bright white and yellow fungal threads in the forest floor. Many of these fungi were mycorrhizal, meaning they have a beneficial, symbiotic relationship with a a host plant, in this case tree roots. Microscopic experimentation revealed that the fungi actually moves carbon, water and nutrients between trees, depending upon their needs.

 

 

“The big trees were subsidizing the young ones through the fungal networks. Without this helping hand, most of the seedlings wouldn’t make it.”

 

 

At the hub of a forest’s mycorrhizal network stand the “Mother Trees”. These are large, older trees that rise above the forest, a concept illustrated in the movie Avatar. These “Mother Trees” are connected to all the other trees in the forest by this network of fungal threads, and may manage the resources of the whole plant community. Simard’s latest research reveals that when a Mother Tree is cut down, the survival rate of the younger members of the forest is substantially diminished.

 

 

What we think we know, is that there’s some kind of electrochemical communication between the roots of the trees. Like the synapses between neurons.

 

Dr. Grace Augustine, fictional character in “Avatar”

 

The concept of symbiotic plant communication has far reaching implications in both the forestry and agricultural industries. This revelation may change the way we approach harvesting forests, by leaving the Mother Trees in tact to foster regrowth. In agriculture, undisturbed mycorrhiza systems enhance plant’s ability to resist pathogens, and absorb water and nutrients from the soil, bringing into question common practices that disturb these underground networks, such as plowing.