Fungus Internet

What if I told you there was an ancient network of communication, similar in many ways to our modern internet, but used primarily by fungi and plants?

You might tell me you’ve already heard of mycorrhizal fungal networks, thank you very much. If so, you probably already know about the vast interconnected web of fungal filaments called mycelium, and how these fungal networks act like an internet for plants.

If you haven’t heard much about this phenomenon, let’s do a TL;DR today.

Imagine a tree is being attacked by a swarm of insects. The tree releases chemicals—kind of like saying “ouch”—from their roots. In some cases, those little filaments from the fungus reach right in and penetrate the root’s cells, creating a direct connection.

I can’t help but think of this as something like plugging two computers in together with an ethernet cable, then exchanging data. This isn’t a perfect analogy, but it’s too good for me to ignore. It’s imperfect (in part) because the sort of data that’s exchanged is more of a binary signal, not a complex mountain of ones and zeroes… but it’s still data.

Plants also have the ability to do an “over-the air-update”, so to speak. When a plant is injured, the damaged cells release different stress compounds into the air and the surrounding soil. Like with an over-the-air communication, this isn’t quite as strong as the direct sort, but both can effectively do the job.

Not all mycorrhizal fungi have their wifi turned on. In other words, some of the types of fungi need to be “plugged in” to the roots, embedded directly into those plant cells.

Eventually, this signal makes its way over to another plant, and then another, and so on. Neighboring plants pick up these signals and preemptively boost their defenses, making them less appetizing—or more resistant—to the threat.

That’s not all these networks can do, either. Sometimes larger trees that have more nutrients than they need can transfer these nutrients to younger seedlings, giving them a better chance at surviving. Some plants can even share water this way.

Not only are the mycorrhizal fungi the backbone of communication, they also help “partner plants” by helping the plants extract nutrients from the soil.

With better overall survival rates for plants connected to the network, ultimately increasing the chance for these plants to reproduce and pass on their genes, it’s no wonder that this sort of network is incredibly common.

Fungi aren’t left out in the cold during these transactions, mind you: they get rewarded with sugars from the plant, making it a win-win for both parties. This is perhaps like paying an internet service fee for connectivity.

And, predictably, like our internet, the fungus internet can be used for ill as well as for good. Remember how recourses can pass through the network? Well, some plants are like cyberterrorists, stealing these away from their intended targets. Also unsurprisingly, they can spread diseases between plants much faster, like a big hack that sends a portion of the internet down for the day.

Of course, no analogy is perfect. These plants aren’t actually villainous cyber-hackers, and the data they exchange is based on chemicals, not words and images. The network operates at the speed of chemicals, not at the speed of light, so communication is millions of times slower than the human internet.

Still, the analogy holds up well enough: there is a fungus internet of sorts out there, and fungus can “plug in” directly to the root of the plant. Failing this, over-the-air updates can be given and information transferred this way, so other plants can “prepare” for new circumstances.

In what other ways is this analogy good? In what ways does it fall apart?