Life in a Woodwide Web

“A tree’s most important means of staying connected to other trees is a ‘woodwide web’ of soil fungi that connects vegetation in an intimate network that allows the sharing of an enormous amount of information and goods.

Scientific research aimed at understanding the astonishing abilities of this partnership between fungi and plant has only just begun. The reason trees share food and communicate
is that they need each other. It takes a forest to create a microclimate suitable for tree growth and sustenance. So it’s not surprising that isolated trees have far shorter lives than those living connected together in forests.”

—From the book The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben