Connected at the Root

In the 1990s, forest ecologist Dr. Suzanne Simard made a remarkable discovery beneath the floors of British Columbia's old-growth forests. Using radioactive carbon tracers, she proved what loggers had long dismissed: trees are not competing loners fighting for sunlight. They are connected — deeply, invisibly, sacrificially — through vast underground networks of mycorrhizal fungi that scientists now call the "wood wide web."…