Imagine a hidden internet made of tiny threads, running right beneath your feet in the woods. This is a mycorrhizal network. It is built by fungi, but not just the mushrooms you see on the surface. Under the dirt, vast webs of ultra-thin threads connect the roots of different plants and trees. They form a massive, living sharing system. Through this underground web, trees do something amazing. They trade resources like water and sugar. They even send warning signals when pests attack. It is a giant cooperative community. But it is not always a perfect partnership. Sometimes, plants and fungi bargain, cheat, or take more than they give. It is a bustling, hidden marketplace that keeps our forests alive.
“If you stretched out all the underground fungal threads in just the top ten centimeters of Earth's soil, they would reach halfway across our entire galaxy.”
Reflect
If trees can share food and warnings with their neighbors, does a forest act more like a single, giant living organism than a group of individual plants?
Visual Trail
A guided visual explanation assembled from QE artwork and sourced documentary images.
QE visual interpretationFrame 01
A massive underground web of fungal threads that links plant roots together, letting them share food, water, and warning signals.
Source: AI-generated visual interpretation
Creator: Question Everything
Limitation: This image explains or evokes the subject. It is not documentary evidence and should not be used to verify a factual claim.
Evidence
Verified claims with confidence scoring and cited sources.
1 of 3 findings need extra caution. Finding 2 rests on weaker sourcing than the other findings.
Claims remain in the reading flow. Select a citation number to inspect the source behind it.
Under the forest floor, tiny fungal threads plug into plant roots. This links multiple plants in a shared network. Once connected, they can pass nutrients back and forth. For example, a tall tree with plenty of sunlight can send food to a young sapling struggling in the shade. It is a lifesaver for young trees.
The network does not just carry food. It also carries news. In a famous study, a Douglas fir tree was damaged by pests. It sent warning chemicals through the fungal threads to a nearby pine tree. The pine tree received the message and quickly built up its own chemical defenses before the bugs could arrive.
Scientists tested this trade using flax and sorghum plants connected by a fungal network. They found a wild imbalance. The flax plant gave very little carbon to the fungus but took almost all the nitrogen and phosphorus. Meanwhile, the sorghum plant invested a massive amount of food but got almost nothing back from the trade.
The complete record below preserves every citation, confidence input and recorded limitation.
Under the forest floor, tiny fungal threads plug into plant roots. This links multiple plants in a shared network. Once connected, they can pass nutrients back and forth. For example, a tall tree with plenty of sunlight can send food to a young sapling struggling in the shade. It is a lifesaver for young trees.
One source, not peer-reviewed. Thinner than the score suggests.
Supporting passage
Under the forest floor, tiny fungal threads plug into plant roots. This links multiple plants in a shared network. Once connected, they can pass nutrients back and forth. For example, a tall tree with plenty of sunlight can send food to a young sapling struggling in the shade. It is a lifesaver for young trees.
Citations
What limits this
The network does not just carry food. It also carries news. In a famous study, a Douglas fir tree was damaged by pests. It sent warning chemicals through the fungal threads to a nearby pine tree. The pine tree received the message and quickly built up its own chemical defenses before the bugs could arrive.
Scored as if sourced, but every citation failed verification.
NO SURVIVING CITATION
Supporting passage
The network does not just carry food. It also carries news. In a famous study, a Douglas fir tree was damaged by pests. It sent warning chemicals through the fungal threads to a nearby pine tree. The pine tree received the message and quickly built up its own chemical defenses before the bugs could arrive.
Citations (0 of 1 survived verification)
Nothing openable. Every citation was removed by provenance validation.
What limits this
Scientists tested this trade using flax and sorghum plants connected by a fungal network. They found a wild imbalance. The flax plant gave very little carbon to the fungus but took almost all the nitrogen and phosphorus. Meanwhile, the sorghum plant invested a massive amount of food but got almost nothing back from the trade.
A single peer-reviewed source. No independent corroboration.
Supporting passage
Scientists tested this trade using flax and sorghum plants connected by a fungal network. They found a wild imbalance. The flax plant gave very little carbon to the fungus but took almost all the nitrogen and phosphorus. Meanwhile, the sorghum plant invested a massive amount of food but got almost nothing back from the trade.
Citations
What limits this
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Mapping relationships…
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450,000,000,000,000,000 km
Total fungal length in Earth's topsoil
This is roughly half the width of our entire galaxy, packed under our feet.
90 meters
Fungal threads in one gram of soil
A tiny pinch of healthy dirt contains enough fungal threads to stretch almost the length of a football field.
80% to 90%
Plants using the network
Nearly all land plants rely on these fungal partnerships to survive.
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Scientists view this network as a highly complex trading market. It is not pure kindness. Both plants and fungi negotiate for resources they need to survive. Fungi want carbon from photosynthesis, which they cannot make themselves. Plants want minerals from deep in the soil. It is a biological marketplace driven by supply and demand, where partners can reward cooperative behavior or penalize bad traders.
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