Artists Michael Gresalfi and Eva Strautmann‘s collaboration responds to our emerging understanding of the Wood Wide Web that connects trees, fungi and soil: networked communities threatened by our ‘competitive’ view of life and by our industrial forestry practices.
1,580 words: estimated reading time = 6.5 minutes
Eva ‘found’ Michael on ClimateCultures following one of his Creative Showcase pieces and his invitation to foster dialogue and collaborations with fellow members, which we shared in our monthly Re:Culture newsletter. We would like to encourage further sharing of ideas and new collaborations between members.
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An interspecies symbiosis driving biological innovation
Below, Michael discusses the role of the Wood Wide Web. First, he
picks up the story of his and Eva’s collaboration:
When Eva and I began to discuss the continuing degradation and disruption of Earth’s regulating systems, we talked about the loss of habitat, and the largely unseen yet growing damage to co-evolved symbiotic relationships between different species. This discussion, and our shared love of forests, led us to our decision to focus both our attention and our art on the so-called ‘Wood Wide Web’.
We both independently created art that represents our artistic visualisation of this incredible symbiotic relationship between fungus, plants and trees.
The scientific community has confirmed many examples in nature of symbiotic relationships between animals, plants, insects, bacteria and fungi. In fact, we can look inside ourselves and find somewhere between one and three pounds of bacteria within our own large intestine: a relationship that scientists have termed a ‘mutualistic symbiosis’.
The surprise to me, when thinking about the so-called Wood Wide Web is both the complexity and the elegance of this mutualistic symbiosis between such a wide range of disparate species. Over the past 500 million years, fungi have co-evolved, along with plants and trees, to the benefit of all in this mutually supportive network.
I would contend that interspecies symbiosis is not just a common evolutionary path; that it is arguably the dominant engine of biological innovation on Earth. Today, roughly 80% to 90% of all land plants rely on fungal symbioses to survive. Without this cross-kingdom partnership, our forests and agricultural systems would collapse and the web of life itself might not exist.
Unfortunately, humans continue to cause such cross-kingdom partnerships to collapse, including the wood wide web. In fact, we have caused many such interspecies relationships to become ‘dysbiotic’.
Conversation with trees
Eva shares her reflections on producing her series as part of the collaboration with Michael:
‘Conversation With Trees’ is a very personal and, at the same time, professional way of viewing my surroundings.
Living in the city, in the mountains of stone, is loud, noisy, exhausting and painful. I can not hear any Voice, just ‘Trash’ and ‘Crash!’
Outside, in the countryside, on the sea, and in the forest, you can listen to the silence, to the movement of water, of ice, of the wind and you can listen to the trees.
This is what I have been doing for years and years, this is actually my home and my inner garden.
The movement of one tree or two or three … is telling me about the day, about friends, who are coming or not, the trees tell me about myself. What I wish, why and why not.
And there is one favourite tree right here, next door to my house, he is a bit nervous about my work: Eva, you are working too much. He keeps on telling me what is better for me. Some more coloured trees tell me about my next steps, what I should do.
I do not want to say here and now what I am telling them, but I am always polite and friendly.
Soon my friend Jacob Strautmann from Boston (USA) will write poems to my paintings, maybe he can describe my works.
These three paintings are the beginning of a series ‘Conversation With Trees’, which started in the dialogue with Michael. Our Zoom session and emails were very inspiring and helpful. I am very thankful to Michael and Mark: Thank you!
Mutualism & communication: life as an interconnected community
The Wood Wide Web portrays a forest not merely as a collection of competing individuals, but as an interconnected community where cooperation, sharing, and communication play a significant role in the health and resilience of the entire ecosystem. Science has revealed that trees in a forest are linked to neighboring trees by an underground network of fungi that resembles the neural networks in the brain.
These fungi form a symbiotic relationship with plant roots. They extend tiny, thread-like filaments far into the soil, acting as an extension of both tree and plant roots and can link the root systems of multiple trees and plants, often across different species.
The network between fungi and trees acts as a conduit for transferring resources like carbon, water, and nitrogen between neighboring trees. Trees, through photosynthesis, produce sugars (carbohydrates) and transfer some of this essential carbon to the fungi. Plants and other producers convert carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and water into carbohydrates (like glucose) using light energy. This process fixes atmospheric carbon into an organic, usable form.
The core of the Wood Wide Web is a biological partnership called mycorrhiza, which means ‘fungus-root’. Mycorrhizal fungi form a symbiotic relationship with plant roots. They extend tiny, thread-like filaments called hyphae (collectively known as mycelium) far into the soil, acting as an extension of the tree’s root system.
These fungal filaments can link the root systems of multiple trees and plants, often across different species, creating what is known as a Common Mycorrhizal Network (CMN).
The mycorrhizal network is believed to enable several vital functions. Resource exchange (mutualism) is the foundation of the relationship:
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- From tree to fungi: Trees, through photosynthesis, produce sugars (carbohydrates) and transfer some of this essential carbon to the fungi.
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- From fungi to tree: The fungi, in return, use their extensive network of hyphae to scavenge for water and crucial soil nutrients (like phosphorus and nitrogen) that are often inaccessible to the tree’s main roots, and transfer them back to the tree.
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- From tree to tree: The network can act as a conduit for transferring resources like carbon, water, and nitrogen between neighboring trees. For instance, a large, well-lit ‘mother tree’ might transfer nutrients to shaded seedlings or stressed neighbors, including its own kin.
Communication is another feature of the web. Some research suggests that trees can send chemical or electrical distress signals as warnings through the network — for example, when under attack by insects or disease — prompting neighboring plants to increase their own defensive enzyme production.
In essence, the Wood Wide Web portrays a forest not merely as a collection of competing individuals, but as an interconnected community where cooperation, sharing, and communication play a significant role in the health and resilience of the entire ecosystem.
Wood Wide Web research — diversity & resilience
The Mother Tree Project is a large-scale, long-term research and outreach initiative led by Dr. Suzanne Simard at the University of British Columbia. It is essentially a real-world experiment in regenerative forestry, building directly upon her decades of research into the Wood Wide Web.
The project’s goal is to find new, sustainable forest management practices that maintain forest health and resilience in the face of accelerating climate change, wildfires, and other disturbances.
Dr. Simard’s research on the Wood Wide Web and Mother Trees has been one of the most significant forces challenging conventional, industrial forestry practices that were largely based on a Darwinian view of tree competition.
Her field studies revealed that trees are linked to neighboring trees by the underground network of fungi described above, which resembles the neural networks in the brain. In one study, Simard watched as a Douglas fir that had been injured by insects appeared to send chemical warning signals to a ponderosa pine growing nearby. The pine tree then produced defense enzymes to protect against the insect.
Simard’s work proved that our aggressive removal of ‘competitors’ actually harmed the desired trees, as the clearcut seedlings were disconnected from the vital mycorrhizal network and the resources provided by the Mother Trees and neighboring species.
Both plants and fungi associate with multiple symbiotic partners at once, and both plants and fungi are capable of preferentially allocating resources to one partner over another.
Her findings advocate for promoting diversity, keeping a mixed-species forest and protecting the oldest, most-connected trees to ensure the entire ecosystem remains resilient.
Mycorrhizal associations have profoundly impacted the evolution of plant life on Earth ever since the initial adaptation of plant life to land. In evolutionary biology, mycorrhizal symbiosis has prompted inquiries into the possibility that symbiosis, not competition, is the main driver of evolution.
Find more
To inform his and Eva’s collaboration, Michael compiled information on the Wood Wide Web from data extracted using AI (Genesis).
The Mother Tree Project was established in 2015 by internationally acclaimed author and University of British Columbia ecologist Dr. Suzanne Simard, to address the urgent need to steward and safeguard British Columbia’s forests amid intensifying climate threats.
Michael also highlights this paper by Lucette Flandroy & colleagues: The impact of human activities and lifestyles on the interlinked microbiota and health of humans and of ecosystems (Science of The Total Environment, Volume 627, 15 June 2018, pages 1018-1038).
Michael Gresalfi
