Woody Wide Web

Kevin Beiler made a spatial "Map" of fungal connections between trees in a 30 x 30 meter plot of forest. The most well connected tree had forty-seven connections via fungal networks to other trees.

The most amount of "hops" it took to get from this most well networked tree to any other tree in the plot was 3. Three hops to get from point A to any point B. The low number of hops was entirely caused by the older trees having more connections to each other than any of the younger trees.

This pattern of connectivity is the same in the World Wide Web: the great majority of web pages have just a few connections and a sparse few pages have many, many connections. This pattern repeats in almost all networks, from global air travel to neuronal linkages. It's all about the "well connected" hub. Well connected hubs are prime targets for network destruction but they are almost thematic in everything we see. Decentralization is key.

As with people, younger trees have fewer connections to mycorrhizal networks and older trees have many. Even in the forest, it's not "what" you know it's "who" you know.

#Alexandria