Interspecies and Human Relationship : How trees talk to each other | Suzanne Simard

"A forest is much more than what you see." - Suzanne Simard is a professor in the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences and teaches at the University of British Columbia.

She is the author of the book “Finding the Mother Tree” published on the 4th of May 2021 ; “Finding the Mother Tree is the kind of story we need to be telling, a new way of communicating that the world desperately needs to hear. The idea of spirituality in science may seem paradoxical to some, but as we have learned from ecologists like Simard and Kimmerer, there is something missing in our study of nature. We have forgotten that we are part of the subjects we study, part of the forests that produce the air we breathe and the water we drink. We rely on nature’s rhythms and cycles far more than we rely on profit and technology. Simard’s book invites us to embrace this connection with the Earth when she writes: “I can’t tell if my blood is in the trees or if the trees are in my blood.” This book has, at its centre, a simple tale of a woman who follows her intuition, views compassion as a strength, and dares to see the world differently. It is also a reminder to listen to our wilder selves, and to remember, with humility, how little we know of the complexities of the natural world..” - TheGuardian.

She studies how these fungi and roots facilitate communication and interaction between trees and plants of an ecosystem. She used radioactive carbon to measure the flow and sharing of carbon between individual trees and species, and discovered that birch and Douglas fir share carbon. Birch trees receive extra carbon from Douglas firs when the birch trees lose their leaves, and birch trees supply carbon to Douglas fir trees that are in the shade.

You can listen to her TedTalk about how trees talk to each other, by clicking the following link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un2yBgIAxYs

Another very well made and inserting video on the subject of the Communication of trees was produce by the French TV channel, France 2 released two years ago on YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTInvQ5Mb1I&list=PLp6zZ_Dl5etJaNvdG5QcZdUkm7_kCOycE