By Derek Markham

Updated February 2, 2022

While it's not news that non-human elements of the natural world can communicate on some level, the idea that mycelia—the main body of fungi, as opposed to mushrooms, which are the fruiting bodies—can act as a sort of old-school planetary internet is still a fairly recent one. And it may serve as a spore of a new breed of forestry, ecology, land management.

Trees' Natural Internet

Paul Stamets famously posited that "mycelia are Earth's natural Internet," and a variety of research has borne out that concept, showing that, among other things, mycelia can act as a conduit for signaling between plants.1 However, most of us tend to ignore the micro in favor of the macro. And when it comes to conservation and natural resources, our systems may be falling prey to reductionist thinking, where a tree is merely a commodity that can be replaced simply by planting another tree.

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