Detangling the Wood Wide Web: Assessing Functionality of Common Mycelial Networks

Detangling the Wood Wide Web: Assessing Functionality of Common Mycelial Networks
IMA Student Scholarship Presentation by Willow AbshireSims.
Willow detangles what is known about common mycelial networks. Her thesis research will investigate whether hyphal connections of Rhizopogon and Laccaria can transfer signal molecules from a stressed tree to a second and third tree. Willow then answers Zoom audience questions.
What lies beneath our feet when we walk through a forest? A massive web of mycelium runs underground, connecting trees by the roots in a network commonly referred to as the “Wood Wide Web”. But what do we know about this “Wood Wide Web”? Perhaps more importantly: what don’t we know, and where might future research take us in our understanding of these interactions?
Bio: Willow AbshireSims is a Masters student at Northwestern University and the Chicago Botanic Garden, with Dr. Gregory Mueller. She graduated from Christopher Newport University in 2019 with a Bachelors of Science in Environmental Biology. In her free time, she enjoys reading, hiking, foraging, and collecting rocks. Her favorite fungus is Marasmius oreades (Fairy Ring Mushrooms).
This October 5, 2020, Zoom presentation was sponsored by the Illinois Mycological Association.
illinoismyco.org

[@SkyonaSisters]

This is fantastic! Thank you!

[@tristensail804]

Highly informative. An your absolutely beautiful. Lets go mushroom hunting !!!!

[@johnnysolow]

What if you equated plant consciousness with human meditatation consciousness? If plant consciousness is actually similar to human meditation awareness which means that a plant experiences each moment as a total body awareness, each and every part of the plant is connected, it reacts to its environment as a totalility not a temporarily blinded part as in human response to reality or living.

[@whatabouttheearth]

With a name like Willow Abshire she had to either get involved with ecology or be a hobbit.