This is a great study, Suzanne Simard shows that all trees in a forest ecosystem are interconnected, with the largest, oldest, “mother trees” serving as hubs. The underground exchange of nutrients increases the survival of younger trees linked into the network of old trees.
I remember at school studying ‘the tree’ drawing it in detail from leaves, stem and roots, the photosynthesis, the ecosystem around it but seeing it as individual. Though I loved that lesson, I really would have love a second lesson drawing the section of all these trees working together as a system!
Let’s mimic nature and build (human) systems with the same resilience and regeneration properties!
Update dec 2016: Read here an interview to Suzanne Simard.
