Plants talk to each other

Plants have the ability to exchange information through the mycelium network below the ground.

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The mycelium acts as a subterranean net, helping to link the roots of many different plants. According to the BBC, a garden tree can connect to another bush a few meters away thanks to mushroom mycelia.

Plants 'talk' to each other thanks to the underground mycelium network.(Photo: NMA News Direct)

About 90% of plants grow in mutually beneficial relationships with mushrooms. In the 19th century, Albert Bernard Frank, a German biologist, introduced the concept of "mushroom roots" to refer to all symbiotic bonds between fungi and roots.

In the mushroom root system, the plant provides food in the form of carbohydrates, the fungus helps plants absorb water, providing nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen through hyphae. The mushroom network also enhances the host's immune system. When a beneficial fungus grows in the root zone, it releases a protective chemical, which helps the plant resist many diseases. The mushroom root system also forms a communication channel between tree roots, distant trees can interact with each other, helping each other coexist.

In 2010, Ren Sen Zeng from China Agricultural University, discovered that when plants are linked to harmful fungi, they release chemical signals to the hyphae to warn "the my neighbor " .

Mushroom fibers grow in the soil.(Photo: Nigel Cattlin / Alamy)

According to David Johnson and colleagues at the University of Aberdeen, UK, vetch also uses the mushroom network to warn an imminent threat. Untreated vetch plants will activate the harmful aphid defense system by connecting to the attacked tree.

Some plants also steal each other's food. Phantom orchids take the amount of carbon they need from nearby plants, through hyphae both connect. Acacia, sugarberries, American corn and some eucalypts can release toxic chemicals into the system, limiting the growth of surrounding trees to compete for water and light.