Suzanne Simard Found Forest Networks

In the 1990s, Canadian ecologist Suzanne Simard studied why Douglas fir trees often became sick after foresters removed nearby birch trees, which they thought were harming the firs. Using carbon isotope tracing, she discovered that paper birch and Douglas fir trees exchanged carbon through underground mycorrhizal fungal networks. Her 1997 research showed that birch trees could support fir trees instead of simply competing with them. The discovery helped popularize the idea of the forest as an interconnected system, later nicknamed the "wood-wide web."

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