Im Reading A Lot Of Research About The Mycorrhizal Network Because This Is A HUGE Emerging Area Of Research

im reading a lot of research about the mycorrhizal network because this is a HUGE emerging area of research and there is so much new stuff coming out its sooooo neat

So basically "the mycorrhizal network is how trees send each other nutrients and help each other" is wrong,

but the main reason people were mad at it—because they thought everything in the ecosystem is selfish and competitive acting for its own interests—is much wronger.

How come?

Well...fungi aren't just a postal service for trees. They have lives of their own! Plants aren't just controlling the mycorrhizal network to send nutrients where they want, they are communicating with the fungus and negotiating the terms of that relationship.

The genetic basis in plants for forming the mycorrhizal symbiosis is old. REALLY old. Like, "before plants even came onto land" OLD. Other forms of symbiosis, like what legumes have going on with the Rhizobia, are using the same genes to do their thing. There's a LOT of genes involved with creating the symbiosis, including some redundancies just to be safe, and we're only just now starting to understand them.

Why so many genes? What are all these genes for? Everything! Communication chemicals, hormones the other partner will respond to, flipping switches in the other partner's genes. There was a lot of arguing over which partner, the plant or the fungus, was "controlling" the partnership, but this question turned out to be total nonsense. Both symbionts have to recognize each other, respond to each other, prepare for symbiosis by adjusting how their genes are expressed, form the symbiosis, and continuously negotiate the relationship by exchanging chemical signals. Both can actively select the partner that offers the best benefits. There's even experiments where it's been shown that if the fungus turns parasitic, the plant will start secreting fungicidal chemicals. (But also the mutualist fungi in the experiment outcompeted the parasitic one when the pots were seeded with both.)

Mycorrhizal symbiosis is an incredibly intimate relationship. Like, the fungus produces special organs that literally grow inside the plant's cells, and the plant is actively participating in allowing this to happen. The plants and fungi have genes for hormones used by the other species, they have soooooo much stuff encoded in their DNA for interacting with their symbionts, it's like, blurring the lines for whether they're even separate organisms. There are SO many chemicals involved in communication between them and we only understand a few of those chemicals.

This is SO MUCH COOLER than if the plants were just using the fungus as a passive conduit to communicate with and support each other. The fungus is actively participating!

We were fools and assumed there had to be one partner that was "in control," but both plant AND fungus have to initiate and to some extent they're each engaging on their own terms! Or maybe it's better to think of them as one and the same organism?

We're also finding out that there's a lot more types of mycorrhizal symbiosis than we thought (at least five) and a lot more variety in how it works.

And that's not even getting into fungal endosymbionts—fungi that live inside plant cells completely instead of having part of them be outside and in the soil. They aren't considered mycorrhizae because they're fully inside the plant cells and not connected with any soil fungi network but they do a lot of complicated things we don't understand and interact with the plant's other symbionts.

Fungal endosymbionts produce a lot of chemicals that are useful to the plants in some way, and it turns out, that a lot of them kill cancer. Seriously, we've gotten a LOT of anti-cancer drugs from these guys. I think it's because they have to bypass the plant's immune system, but they also fight each other/other little guys that get inside plant cells, so they kind of...are part of the plant's immune system?

And what's MORE

Is that plants and fungus aren't the only things part of this system! There's also bacteria that are symbiotic with the plants and fungi! Even the endosymbiont fungi have bacteria that are endosymbionts inside THEM. Double endosymbiosis.

I think I read one paper saying the bacteria use the fungi to get around? Like that's how Rhizobia find their way to the legume roots in the first place? Have to double check that one

Yes, darling?

as a child I wondered why adults were so stupid (doing things out of habit/routine/heuristics rather than reasoning explicitly about what to do based on their goals) and the answer is that adults are unimaginably fucking tired all the time

"Astarion slaying Cazador" - Study inspired by St. Michael slaying the Devil statue by Giuseppe Antonio Lomuscio

Traditional art, colored pencils on A4 paper

Thoughts on Halsin's Elvin features:

Specifically on how he doesn't look like a typical elf, and how that impacts him mentally.

Iirc, by elven standards he's not considered attractive. And if it weren't for his ears it'd be easy to mistake him for a human. If one looks close enough, his elven features (as seen here and here) are clearly visible- but most people don't bother to look closer.

I imagine he has a lot of complicated feelings surrounding his looks. He knows he is considered attractive by many, but not by his own people('s beauty standards). If it weren't for him being an "oddity" he would have been killed by the Drow. But also- if it weren't for this "oddity", would they have even noticed him and captured him?

He is a gentle man who feels deeply. But his large stature generally makes people want to fight him, or it makes them fear him. Being large also makes people assume his "feelings cannot be harmed." He himself says he trusts people too easily, and I think part of why he does so is because he knows how deeply it hurts to be mistrusted based on ones appearance.

He doesn't seem to like to draw attention to himself, but his large size is a glaring neon sign that causes people to pay attention to him- even in a crowd. Because of his size people automatically look to him for answers, they defer to him because of his stature. He takes charge because of his innate sense of responsibility, but he doesn't like to be the (sole) leader.

He is generally the largest person around. It others him no matter where he goes. Is it any wonder that he never feels at home anywhere?

It isn't until he has cartloads of orphan children, who like him are othered without anywhere to anchor their roots to, that he finally feels settled. In Reithwin no less, the land connected to childhood friend. (I intend to expand upon this idea, but in another post- this one is long enough as it is. Also it's diverges from the main topic. I'll link it here when I post it.)