Plants Have Their Own 'Internet' (And It's Cooler Than Ours)
Plants have been around for like over 20 years. They're pretty old. Remember Jurassic Park? They're older than that -- the movie and the increasingly uncanny dinosaurs of the film. And millennia before humans had language itself, plants had a complicated multi-faceted information highway ... comprised of mushrooms.
The thing about mushrooms is, they're everywhere -- even though we tend to think of the sprouting dicks of mushrooms when we think of fungi, it's the mycelium that's what's important -- it's the body and brain of the fungi. This network can connect entire forests together into CMNs -- Citrus Marketing Networks.
Common mycorrhizal networks (CMNs) are comprised of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, which is a long name for a specific type of fungus that will just Genghis Khan its way through a forest, conquering all. Once connected, it will function as connective tissue so that instead of some trees in a patch, it becomes a forest -- a living network of trees. If one plant is attacked by, say, caterpillars, the others in the network will prepare their defenses for similar such attacks.
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It's like that scene at the beginning of Mulan, except Shan Yu is some moths:
If there's an abundance of nutrients and some plants need it, they'll get it. It's not a fun addendum either. This network can be found in 65% of all known land plant species, and for many plants, this symbiosis is necessary for their survival. Like Venom, but a forest, and without a terrible Eminem song about it.
The CMNs connect plants of all shapes and sizes; all different species share nutrients and warning chemicals with each other, and in exchange, the mycelium mooches off of it a bit. For just a small percent of what the trees have, the mycelium creates an entire foundation of transportation, communication, and connection. Capitalism has been solved. Nature is communist.
Top Image: TomaszProszek/Pixabay
