Okay, nature lovers. Listen up. Turns out that the wildly visionary science fiction fantasy in the 2009 film Avatar isn’t so much fiction as premonition. Trees do communicate with one another via underground mycelium web, but not just in grunts and groans — useful things like “Not enough water reaching that sycamore near the sagebrush, … send in reinforcements,” although probably they have an accent of some sort.
In Avatar, The Tree of Souls (Ayvitrayä Ramunong in Na’vi) is a tree where the Na’vi are able to communicate with the biological network. In the film, the tree is seen to be capable of transferring a specific consciousness from one body to another.[20]
I’m not saying Planet Earth trees are like J. R. R. Tolkien’s “Ent” personification of giants that walk and talk. To suggest that trees walk is entirely absurd. But that other thing, the talking part, apparently not so far-fetched. And more importantly, they not only communicate, but they cooperate, too.
Don’t believe me? University of British Columbia professor Suzanne Simard explains that “trees in a forest ecosystem are interconnected with the largest, oldest ‘mother trees’ serving as hubs.” Here’s the science and a 4′ 41″ video that tells all: karmatube.org/videos.php?id=2764 or if that one ain’t talkin’, try treehugger.com instead.
Not to gossip, but it turns out that the underground exchange of nutrients increases the survival of younger trees linked into the network of old trees. Go figure.