Wood Wide Web: How Plants Communicate

That they are not passive living beings at the mercy of events, we know very well: we have already spoken of their immense, albeit different from ours, intelligence. But that they can even communicate seems surreal. Plants are not only our main source of life, but also the first and most clever inhabitants of the earth, who preceded us by far and developed long before us certain survival techniques, intelligence, and yes, even communication.

The way plants, on their own and within an ecosystem, are able to store information and make decisions, is indicative of their intelligence. But when they are part of a group, they are also able to communicate with each other. More and more studies and theories confirm these hypotheses, so much so that we can imagine the Wood Wide Web, a hidden network made of roots and microorganisms, similar to that of the internet, which allows trees and bushes to communicate through the soil. And to exchange information essential for their survival.

1. Do plants really communicate with each other?
2. The Wood Wide Web
3. Learning from plants, which communicate and collaborate instead of competing

Do plants really communicate with each other?

In the essay “Verde Brillante”, Italian botanist Stefano Mancuso addresses the topic of communication between plants. According to research, plants are able to release thousands of molecules into the air or water, chemical substances detected by other plants, which transmit information. In this way, they manage to send danger signals, but also warn nearby plants of the need for some nutrient they are lacking. In short, it is a real language, which combines with another communication system of the plant world that Mancuso analyzes well in his essay: that of contact, which allows roots and leaves of different trees to exchange information through simple touch.

What seems clear is that plants have developed much more than one survival technique, exploiting and demonstrating an intelligence that we often do not expect. They know how to develop defense systems against predators, directing roots and branches so as to survive any predation. They know how to react to attacks by bacteria or parasites. They know how to “search” for the nutrients necessary for their survival when the soil they are in is lacking them, moving the roots in other directions or exchanging them with those who need them less. The strength of the plant world lies, in fact, precisely in its ability to communicate, which allows all its inhabitants to collaborate for mutual survival. And that incredible communication ability was perfectly theorized in the Wood Wide Web.

The Wood Wide Web

Plants talk, exchange data, but also resources, underground, where no one sees, creating a dense and invisible communication network much more efficient than we imagine. Put this way, perhaps, it reminds us of some spy story, but plants are certainly not communicating to conquer the world. It is to survive, to have access to the nutrients they need. Within the communication between trees and plants, there is, in fact, an exchange of carbon, water, and other nutrients, as well as some defense or warning signals.

The idea is starting to gain ground that plants in an ecosystem are somehow connected and can “communicate” with each other through a dense network of roots, which resembles the neural system, sending and receiving information with the help of some fungi. This is the idea at the heart of the Wood Wide Web, theorized for the first time by Canadian scientist Suzanne Simard, then supported by dozens of scholars after her.

The theory behind the Wood Wide Web holds that there is a similarity between the functioning of the internet and that of the underground mycelium. Mycelium is the vegetative apparatus of fungi that lives a few centimeters below the soil and allows communication between roots even very far apart. The research published by the Canadian scientist in Nature has indeed demonstrated the abilities of some trees to maintain very high levels of neural connections with other plants.

The incredible network of fungi that extends for kilometers, connects the trees together, becomes a vehicle for information and also for the transfer of resources and nutrients. Suzanne Simard's experiments have demonstrated the ability of some trees, called Hubs, to maintain connections with a very large number of different specimens and species, allowing the creation of a real underground exchange economy. The role of fungi in this network is fundamental. They are unable to perform photosynthesis, but they have many other qualities that allow them to “exchange favors” with plants. They barter water, minerals, and chemicals in exchange for sugars and carbon, to which they would not have access without photosynthesis, and they act as messengers in case of danger, such as the imminent attack by parasites.

If the name of the Wood Wide Web therefore takes after that of the internet network is because it somehow resembles it. The dense network of connections, of exchanges of information between different plants and between plants and fungi, allows ecosystems to survive, share resources, and help each other. An intelligent and ingenious system from which we should also learn.

Learning from plants, which communicate and collaborate instead of competing

Plants, trees, and all living beings that make up the Wood Wide Web teach us a lesson worth learning. The goal, for any living being, is survival. In their millennia-old experience of inhabiting our Earth long before the appearance of human beings or other animals, plants have experimented with all the best ways to survive, and have come to conclusions different from ours. In fact, they do not communicate with each other, they do not exchange information or even nutrients out of altruism, that is certainly not their nature. Simply, evolution has shown them that collaboration is much more effective than competition for pursuing survival goals.

If a plant has an excess of a certain mineral, and one of its neighbors has a deficiency of that same substance, offering it will not take anything away from the first but will guarantee the survival of the second, which in turn will offer water or carbon to whoever needs it. Ecosystems, therefore, survive because they collaborate, because they make their resources available to the group, because they help each other.

In our world of humans, advanced yes, but no more than the plant world, we have not yet learned the lesson that plants have been teaching us for millennia, namely that the only way to survive is to collaborate, and not fight. Because no one loses and everyone wins.