The Girlie Forest Metaphor

From the Gap Between Spirituality and Science

One space I find myself constantly traversing is the space between the, “woo woo,” spiritual and the hardline scientific and the more I think about this month’s topic, the blurrier the edges of this gap become. 

My mind was blown back in 2016 when I listened to the Radiolab podcast episode, From Tree to Shining Tree, where the team interviewed scientist and professor of forest ecology, Suzanne Simard. The discussion centered around her discovery of the symbiotic relationship between trees and a threadlike carpet of fungi called the mycorrhizal network that links the trees underground. The podcasters offered a helpful and oversimplified explanation that I am here, unapologetically condensing and simplifying further - the trees make sugar from carbon and the fungi harvest minerals from dying organisms. The two exchange these resources. In some instances, ingested fungi kill certain organisms and drain them of the minerals they possess. These minerals allow trees to grow and stand tall, which allows them to harvest carbon from the atmosphere, and of course, to photosynthesize it and emit oxygen for everyone else in the ecosystem. 

According to Simard, this carpet of intertwined fungi and roots has another function. It acts as a neural network to communicate the needs of the trees and it transports essential nutrients to nourish new trees or to heal sick ones. It also acts as a storage system for the sugar the trees create and if a tree dies, it will release its nutrients back into the network so that they may be used by other trees. She further asserts that these benefits are not limited to a specific species, but for the forest as a whole: firs, pines, oaks, maples, et al. all benefit from this connection. 

This past December, Ferris Jabr of The New York Times published a new article The Social Life of Forests in which he interviewed Suzanne Simard. The same essential elements of the RadioLab episode are discussed, but Jabr cued in on one aspect that particularly caught my attention - the controversy that Simard’s work has stirred. Jabr discussed the judgment Simard received as she began to follow her interest in the interaction between species. Researchers in the field could not understand why she wasn’t examining growth and yield. Simard told Jabr, “ I was more interested in how these plants interact. They thought it was all very girlie.” 

Simard has since gone on to influence the studies of the scientific community, and her work has captured the imaginations of the literary community as well, inspiring Richard Power’s best selling and Pulitzer-prize winning novel, The Overstory.  But, while she has steadily gained respect from her peers, the pushback has continued. Embedded in her research, is the innate assertion that nature is cooperative. This creates a problematic affront to Darwin’s old maxim,  “survival of the fittest,” which encapsulates the long-accepted definitive -to survive is to compete. 

Upon reading the Times article, my mind, at once, was aswirl with all sorts of questions and ideas. I thought back to a discussion I recently had on Twitter with a stranger who thought our country should do away with welfare because we’d be stronger if we stopped interrupting the natural order of things, using, “survival of the fittest,” as the argument to prove his point. 

“Is survival cooperative?” I wondered. Why would an interest in interaction be considered girlie? Is cooperation girlie? Is competition masculine? What are the implications of this to the way we’ve built society? What does this mean about us as a species? Should we be looking at the mycorrhizal exchange as a metaphor for human interaction? How arrogant is it of us to turn to nature for metaphors, when we are nature ourselves?

 In the RadioLab episode, the big question was, “Who is in charge, the fungi or the trees?” An idea crept into the edges of my thinking - if the fungi are calling the shots, how do we know they are not the benefactors of the relationship, and if so, doesn’t this interfere with the importance of the idea that cooperation is an integral part of survival?

This was the point at which I reached out to forestry researcher, Jason Hoeksema who was noted in The New York Times article, and who also happened to be a professor at my alma mater, The University of Mississippi (Hotty Toddy). Jason shared that the hypothesis I was entertaining was actually one of three being discussed in the field of forestry. I appreciate Hoeksama’s level-headed and patient analysis. He believes the current research doesn’t necessarily point toward a cooperative relationship. Instead, he said, there is support for the idea mentioned above, that the fungi are the benefactors. There is also support for the idea that the resource-sharing is actually a passive process. He shared with me three scholarly articles in which he and another researcher, Michael C. Booth explored their findings.  In one, it appears as though the network benefits some trees while limiting others. In another, the conclusion is that we just don’t know enough about it yet and that we should find new ways to learn more. 

I have to confess, I was disappointed at first. I really hoped for an affirmation of nature’s cooperation supported by a wealth of research. When I read The Social Life of Forests, I mentally conjured a response article within moments, drawing deeply on a parallel between mother nature’s benevolence and society’s desperate need to turn toward cooperation. But, I also like to try to guard myself against running away with half-cocked romantic ideals, which is something I am dreadfully inclined to do. I know I don’t want to be so, “woo woo,” as to take a dab of science and slather it over a sweeping and emotional generalization of human behavior, but I also don’t want to be so analytical that I compartmentalize every little morsel of knowledge so that no two disciplines ever meet, or worse, abandon all curiosity in submission to the experts.  As it turns out, there is a whole lot more to understand about the forest and evolutionary functions than one podcast and one news article can contain. Go figure.  Every step I have taken into this investigation has led to more questions.

Hoeksema helped me understand the difference between my understanding of the word, “altruism,” and it’s actual meaning in the discussion of evolutionary studies. I thought altruism simply meant, “to help another.” In evolutionary terms, it means, “to help another at one’s own expense.” In the intensity of evolutionary science, there are a lot of hair-splitting details of the units in which one can or should measure altruism. I found all sorts of conversations that have taken place over the ages about how, “survival of the fittest,” pertains to the individual, or the species as a whole, or a subset group, or a number of species, and so on. The unit is a factor in understanding the depth of Simard’s claims. And, indeed, it would be a luxurious model for humanity, if it is true that an entire, multi-special forest is acting as a single community with an active, subterranean warehouse of resources channeling nourishment to and fro to care for one another and ultimately generate the oxygen upon which we all rely. I love the very idea of it, that our breath is dependent on communication and, in some sense, selflessness, and nurture. It sure beats the heck out of one idea that Hoeksama threw out, that maybe the trees just need to off-load a metabolic bi-product and it happens to end up in the fungi. That is a terrible metaphor for humanity. It sounds like... pooping on the little guy. 

But see, here is the thing, the trees still exist. And so do the fungi and the carbon and the oxygen and all the minerals. And our very lives depend on them for the air we breathe. And yet, here we are, with our big ole brains at the top of the food chain, having risen above every known predator in the wild. With an ever-widening gap between the haves and have nots, in a country rife with civil unrest, fanning or fighting the flames of social-media induced vitriol, continuing the world’s longest battle for social justice, all the while, knowingly embracing or ignoring the looming mountain of evidence that the devastating toll we are taking on the environment is nearing the brink of no return. 

So, to get a little “woo woo,” for a bit, I am going to borrow from one of our many spiritual texts, the Bible’s book of James:  “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?" 

Just look at the mess we are in and tell me what of it has not been born out of greed and what is greed but a competition to gratify selfish desire? Desires for land, money, power, leisure, or notoriety. Greed is survival run amuck. 

In my shallow dive into a better understanding of forestry and evolution, one question haunts me - of all the species on earth, why is mankind the only one that causes destruction to the natural order of things? The only answer I can come up with is our insufferable worship of this idea that being the best means winning alone. But, in his survey of how units of species perform and dominate, Darwin also said, “The most cohesive and cooperative groups generally beat the groups of selfish individualists.”

I have to wonder, if we walk this thing out to its logical and apocalyptic end and mankind has destroyed the planet, would the fittest have survived? Maybe… if we want to hedge our bets toward another species rising up and removing us from our position on the food chain. But… is there an alternative? Could we broaden our unit to include more species?

It seems obvious. To be the fittest, we must exhibit altruism. To save our nation, to save our planet, to save ourselves, we are going to have to give something up. Some resources, some element of our culture, some bit of our ego. I think we can look around by now and see that one species can not dominate all the resources on a planet where the flora and the fauna are inextricably linked through a symbiotic bond. And the question becomes, what then shall we do? 

I am reminded of the discovery of famed primatologist, Robert Sapolsky who witnessed a shift in behavior in a tribe of baboons when tuberculosis killed off their ruling, aggressive males. In his ten year study, he cataloged a transition to a far gentler society in which there was far less aggressive behavior and far more grooming. In short, it would appear that the troop had become less competitive, and dare I say, more girlie. It is not impossible. It only takes a generation to learn a new way to be. 

In ancient Greek, “the wisdom of God,” was personified as a woman, Sophia. Maybe it’s time to start exploring the feminine side of survival.

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