The Biggest Scandal in Science

0:00 Over the past 25 years,

0:02 scientists have presented us with a captivating, almost Disneyesque tale.

0:09 Imagine a diverse and vibrant forest filled

0:13 with trees of different ages and species,

0:16 all thriving in the sunlight that powers their cellular functions.

0:21 But hidden beneath the surface, intertwined within their roots,

0:25 are thin hair-like strands of a different kingdom altogether.

0:31 These branching structures serve not only

0:33 to expand the reach of each individual tree,

0:36 but they connect multiple trees together,

0:39 allowing messages to be communicated in a buzzing multi-service system,

0:44 akin to the invention that changed

0:46 the course of human civilization, the internet.

0:51 Welcome to the woodwide web.

0:57 I'm James Stewart and you're watching Astramm Earth.

1:00 Now, buckle up because we're about

1:02 to recount a scientific tale with more twists,

1:05 turns, and knots than an old oak tree.

1:09 The discovery of the woodwide web mesmerized

1:12 the public as much as the internet itself,

1:16 resulting in the publication of countless popular science articles,

1:20 books, documentaries, films, podcasts, and more.

1:25 But is there more to the story?

1:28 A growing number of scientists certainly seem to think so,

1:30 and the result has been a bitter academic war that still continues to this day.

1:37 In this video, join me as we uncover the whole

1:40 story behind the famed woodwide web, where it all began,

1:45 its impact on conservation, and the wealth of research it inspired

1:50 into the secret lives of our wooden friends.

1:53 Our story begins in the temperate forests of British Columbia in Canada.

2:00 Suzanne Simard is about to make a discovery that will help her to achieve

2:04 the near impossible with her PhD thesis making the cover of nature.

2:10 In 1997, her article was published with the title net

2:14 transfer of carbon between ectoicroisal tree species in the field,

2:20 which is fairly unassuming considering the content of this paper.

2:24 In essence, Simard was claiming to have observed

2:27 the transfer of carbon between seedlings of paper

2:31 birch and Douglas fur in the field through

2:35 a shared fungal connection between their root systems.

2:40 Not just any old fungus can form a connection with trees.

2:45 This privilege is mostly reserved for microisal fungi.

2:49 The term microisal fungi refers to a broad group of species

2:53 that have been forming beneficial partnerships

2:56 with plants for over 450 million years.

3:00 Their name comes from the Greek mics meaning fungi

3:04 and riser meaning root which is accurate because these fungi form

3:09 their relationships with the roots of their plant partners extending

3:13 the reach of the plant through a fungal network called the mcelium.

3:18 These networks are so vast, it's estimated that every 1 kg of soil

3:23 can contain up to 200 km of fungal strands.

3:27 And some individual fungi can extend across 100 square m.

3:33 With this impressive reach, the fungus can help its plant friends to absorb more

3:38 nutrients from the soil in exchange for some of their sugars.

3:42 This is an example of symbiosis because both

3:45 parties get something good out of the relationship.

3:48 Now, scientists already knew about this network

3:51 at the time of Simard's research.

3:53 All the way back in 1885,

3:56 the German plant biologist Albert Bernard Frank wrote a paper describing

4:01 the symbiosis between plant roots

4:03 and microisal fungi in Prussian truffle districts.

4:07 And throughout the 20th century,

4:09 scientists had documented the transfer of carbon,

4:12 nitrogen, and phosphorus through fungal connections in lab experiments.

4:17 But what made Sim's discovery so exciting was that she claimed to have

4:22 seen trees using this network to transfer carbon out in the forest,

4:27 which was a big deal.

4:29 In the forest, there are far more variables at play,

4:32 some of which are near impossible to replicate in a lab study.

4:36 Anything that you observe in these natural environments is

4:40 a far more realistic snapshot of what is really going on.

4:44 So, it's often the final piece of evidence needed to prove a theory.

4:49 This was no different for the theory of a woodswide web.

4:53 Scientists knew it existed and had some idea of what it could do,

4:58 but for many, Sim's research provided definitive evidence

5:01 that these ideas hold true for realworld habitats.

5:06 Now, as I'm sure you're wondering, how did she do it?

5:11 Well, the study looked at paper birch and the Douglas fur trees

5:15 because they are known to make the same type of fungal connections.

5:18 Each seedling was given a dose of carbon dioxide gas,

5:22 which was labeled with different isotopes of carbon,

5:24 so the team could track where this carbon ended up.

5:28 On top of this, the Douglas fur was kept in the shade

5:30 so that it would make less of its own sugars by photosynthesis.

5:35 The experiment ran for two growing seasons and the results were astounding.

5:41 Sim found that the labeled carbon dioxide had been

5:44 converted into sugars by photosynthesis in the paper birch,

5:48 then transferred to the Douglas fur through their fungal link.

5:53 Some carbon had traveled in the other direction, too.

5:56 But since the Douglas fur was struggling to make sugars in the shade,

5:59 the paper birch had transferred more carbon to it overall,

6:03 resulting in a net carbon gain in the Douglas fur.

6:07 In other words, these trees weren't just

6:10 going Dutch and splitting their carbon equally.

6:13 The paper birch was giving extra carbon to the Douglas fur.

6:18 The team were shocked by this result and naturally started coming up

6:22 with some ideas as to why the paper birch was being so generous.

6:26 This led them to wonder, could it somehow sense that the Douglas fur

6:31 wasn't making as much carbon on its own?

6:34 This theory was outrageous.

6:36 It seemed to tear apart the widely accepted concept of survival of the fittest.

6:42 Instead of everyone looking out for themselves,

6:44 we're talking about two different species helping each

6:48 other via a shared connection with a third, even more distantly related species.

6:55 Though they are different,

6:56 these tree species are competing for the same resources,

6:59 light, space, water, and nutrients.

7:02 So why don't they just keep everything for themselves?

7:05 Could it be that they share because their generosity

7:07 will eventually be returned by another member of the forest?

7:12 Simod's findings suggested that trees formed

7:14 far closeknit communities than we once thought

7:17 and that resources were shared to boost the overall health of the forest,

7:22 aided by some seriously helpful fungy of course.

7:26 Printed on the cover page of nature with the catchy slogan woodwide web.

7:32 This discovery caused quite the stir and the idea that trees had beaten us

7:37 to the punch with their own internet

7:39 with wooden servers and fungal rooters really caught on.

7:44 There were articles on the hidden language of trees,

7:48 manuals on deciphering tree feelings, documentaries,

7:52 TED talks, and bizarrely even a name drop for Simard in the hit show Ted Lasso.

7:59 If you look at the use of the phrase

8:01 woodwide web in publications between 1997 and 2022,

8:06 you can see an exponential increase in popularity from the early 2000s.

8:11 The woodwide web had even spun its silk over Hollywood with Amy Adams

8:15 set to star as Simard in the feature film adaption of her research career.

8:20 The world, it seemed, had gone tree crazy.

8:24 But Simar took things one step further,

8:27 publishing a book titled Finding the Mother Tree in 2021.

8:32 The book is essentially a memoir telling the story of Simar's

8:35 professional and personal life against the backdrop of the Canadian forest.

8:40 Besides her 1997 research,

8:42 Simar discusses her discovery that fungal networks can

8:45 allow for warning signals to be communicated between trees,

8:49 kin recognized, and preferential treatment applied to closer relatives.

8:54 She even suggests that the fungal network in forests works like a human

8:58 brain with the fungal strands

9:00 as neurons and chemical signals as neurotransmitters.

9:05 This concept transforms the forest into an ecosystem where no tree

9:09 stands alone and familiar bonds can get you through hard times.

9:14 With a picture like that, who wouldn't have the urge

9:17 to run to the nearest forest and hug a mother tree?

9:22 It certainly was a beautiful idea

9:25 that organisms from totally different kingdoms,

9:28 plante and fungi, could come together in symbiosis

9:32 to promote communication across the entire forest.

9:36 It had the potential to revolutionize

9:38 the way we thought about conservation going forward.

9:42 More emphasis could be placed on maintaining mother trees in the forest.

9:47 But perhaps even more revolutionary was the idea

9:50 that trees were more like us than we thought.

9:54 They too could speak, could provide for their kids,

9:58 give preferential treatment to their friends, and maintain a social life.

10:04 Amid these global shifts in perspective, it seems like the golden opportunity

10:09 to seek similarities between us and the plants.

10:13 In fact, these scientists were giving us the green light to do so.

10:19 The world had certainly fallen in love with the woodswide web,

10:23 but like a tree being failed, it was all about to come crashing down.

10:33 Justine cast, Jason Hookimmer, and Melanie Jones.

10:38 These scientists shared something vital in common.

10:41 They had all worked with Suzanne Simard at some point in their careers.

10:45 Melanie Jones even co-authored the famous 1997 paper that started our story off.

10:51 Despite sharing Simard's belief in the woodwide web for years,

10:56 these three tree experts had begun to get

10:58 an uneasy feeling about where it was all heading,

11:01 both in academic circles and the wider media.

11:05 So they did what any good scientist would do and ask the difficult questions,

11:09 forcing themselves to look objectively,

11:11 even if that meant casting doubts on their own research.

11:16 In a later interview,

11:17 Cass explained that they didn't initially set out to debunk

11:20 any of Simard's claims about the woodw white web.

11:24 Yeah, as a scientist,

11:25 we can't pick and choose what are the good stories and the bad stories.

11:30 That's sort of not our job.

11:32 Rereading the literature had forced them to face an uncomfortable truth

11:36 about the fungal networks they had once put so much faith in.

11:41 Unnerved by what they found,

11:43 the authors voiced their concerns in an article published in 2023

11:47 to greater claim by the rest of the science community.

11:52 This article garnered almost as much attention

11:54 as the 1997 study that had inspired it

11:58 and brought the dream of the woodwide web as we knew it to an abrupt end.

12:06 But what did the authors take so much issue with?

12:09 In their paper, Cast and her colleagues reviewed

12:12 all research surrounding what they call common mcelial networks,

12:16 which is just a more technical term for woodwide web,

12:20 where microisal fungi connect the roots

12:22 of the same or different plant species underground.

12:25 We'll call it the network from now on to make things simpler.

12:29 They identify three common claims that have been made about these networks

12:33 and soughts to review each claim in turn to see if the evidence agreed.

12:38 The first one, namely that the networks are widespread in forests,

12:42 was fairly simple to explore.

12:44 Many microisal fungi can and do form

12:47 associations with lots of different host species,

12:50 which would suggest that networks are common in forests.

12:53 However, there is a problem because we can't really observe

12:57 these networks in situ that is in the forest itself,

13:01 as you would damage and fragment it before you

13:03 could tell whether it was one continuous connection or not.

13:07 Each fungal strand is only about the width of a human hair after all.

13:11 There has been research mapping the presence

13:13 of microisal fungi using techniques like machine learning.

13:17 But to actually know whether these fungi link together

13:19 in one big continuous network across a forest, well,

13:23 scientists would need to analyze the DNA of the fungi

13:26 and the plant roots they attach to everywhere in the woods.

13:29 Well, at least in as many different locations

13:31 as possible to see if they match up.

13:34 It's a long, expensive, and slow process and had only been done by five studies

13:40 for two tree species at the time the authors were writing.

13:44 The point is that even though these networks do form,

13:47 we can't be sure that the links are continuous enough through

13:50 time and space to make them a viable tool for communication.

13:55 For all we know, the links might only last a few days

13:58 or could be too fragile to connect trees from opposite ends of the forest.

14:03 The second claim was that seedlings can use

14:06 the network to share resources like the carbon

14:09 we saw earlier in order to help them grow and not just within the same species.

14:15 Now, this one hit especially close to home

14:17 for the authors because they had all worked with Suzanne

14:20 Simard on this and her 1997 study was

14:23 the first to properly test it out in the field.

14:27 But what Cast and her colleagues started to question years later was

14:31 that this behavior doesn't seem to lie within the fungi self-interest at all.

14:36 Think about it.

14:37 If you were a fungus connecting the roots of two tree species,

14:41 why would you only ever funnel resources between

14:44 the two trees rather than taking some for yourself?

14:47 And how is the fungus supposed to know the difference between carbon it can

14:51 use for itself and carbon to be sent for paper birch's friend the Douglas fur?

14:58 The authors reviewed 26 studies that claim

15:01 to prove resource transfer through the network and found

15:04 that for all of them the results could

15:06 be explained without involving the network at all.

15:10 For many, the resources could just have easily have been

15:12 transferred through the soil with no need for fungal connections.

15:16 And that includes the 1997 study.

15:20 Similarly, the authors note that no study

15:22 has actually provided proof that this transferred carbon,

15:25 if it exists, actually benefits the performance of the tree receiving it.

15:30 How could it?

15:31 If you were a tree with a system

15:33 to generate food and find resources on your own,

15:36 why would you depend on help from an unrelated neighbor tree?

15:39 one that could easily die, become disconnected, or simply stop cooperating.

15:44 It doesn't seem like a very good strategy evolution-wise.

15:49 Well, the authors weren't finished there.

15:51 The final claim was that mature trees were more likely

15:54 to communicate and share with their own offspring through the network,

15:59 which largely covers the whole mother tree idea.

16:03 And this one may be shocking because the authors actually found

16:07 no published peer-reviewed evidence from forests at all to support this claim.

16:13 In fact, a master's thesis from Simard's own lab actually

16:17 found the opposite as Douglas furs placed in a shared

16:20 fungal network were less likely to survive if they

16:24 were close to their older genetic relatives in the field.

16:27 Even more uncomfortable is that Simard made a narrative choice to write

16:32 in her book that the grad student had found support for her theory,

16:37 even though she has since denied

16:38 that she was deliberately misleading her readers.

16:42 To top off their review, Cast and her colleagues looked to see whether there

16:46 had been any bias in the literature surrounding the network.

16:49 They identified 18 studies that had been influential in this field

16:54 and looked at how they were used in subsequent research.

16:58 There can be a tendency for more positive

17:00 or more interesting results to be sized more

17:03 than those that are neutral or disagree

17:06 with the hypothesis even if methodically the research was correct.

17:10 It's called positive citation bias and can lead to misconceptions being spread.

17:16 And sadly, that is exactly what the authors found in this case.

17:21 Across nearly 1,700 papers citing the 18 original studies,

17:27 around 25% of them were misinterpreting these studies as support for claims

17:32 about network structure and 50% of them for claims about network function.

17:39 To give just one example of this bias,

17:41 several of the 18 papers had reported evidence that networks could form.

17:46 But many papers published later had cited these studies

17:49 as evidence the networks were present in forests.

17:53 In research, wording is everything.

17:56 And evidence suggesting that networks can form is not the same

17:59 as evidence that they do form in complex real world habitats.

18:05 But you can see how that kind of positive bias is a bit of a runaway train.

18:09 And if even published researchers are doing it,

18:12 then it's bound to happen in the mainstream media, too.

18:17 As you may expect, Simage wasn't too pleased when

18:19 the Woodwide Web began to unravel at her feet,

18:23 calling Cast's review paper an injustice to the whole world, no less.

18:28 She labeled all the critics as reductionist scientists and has

18:32 since published response articles pushing back on some of their arguments.

18:36 Now, although we're often quick to take sides during a drama,

18:39 it's important to note that there are no heroes and villains in this story.

18:43 Some scientists may disagree with Sim's stance, but others don't.

18:47 And if nothing else, Sim has done good work for the forest, too.

18:51 Her 2015 Mother Tree Project is a research initiative

18:55 aimed to protect the biodiversity of British Columbia woodlands,

18:59 drawing on indigenous knowledge and changing forestry

19:02 practices in North America to be more sustainable.

19:05 These are admirable goals, goals which we can agree are

19:08 probably good for conservation regardless of whether

19:10 the person advocating for them believes in the woodwide web or not.

19:16 Like many scientific arguments,

19:17 the situation has become messy with researchers picking at details

19:22 and scrabbling to express where they stand on the matter.

19:26 Unfortunately, by the time the smoke clears on this debate,

19:29 the public may have lost interest in the result,

19:31 and scientists will definitely struggle to garner the same

19:34 kind of enthusiasm that once buzzed around the woodwide web.

19:40 But as K says, our job as scientists is to present

19:44 the truth as close as we can get to it.

19:47 Errors, misinterpretation,

19:49 and even over excitement are all traps that scientists

19:53 and the media reporting their findings can fall into.

19:56 We are all human after all.

19:58 So, we need to always be open to reflect objectively

20:00 and update our presentation of truth as we gain new insights.

20:06 And one thing scientists can all agree on, these revelations about the woodwide

20:11 web should never be used to discount

20:13 trees altogether or neglect their conservation.

20:17 Now, with all that disillusionment behind us,

20:20 it's time to move on to something more concrete because

20:23 we may be unsure about the extent of plant communication,

20:26 but there is no doubt among scientists that plants do communicate.

20:31 Moving from sync to source, plant leaves can be the trigger for vital messages.

20:37 Volatile organic compounds or VOCC's encompass a large group

20:42 of molecules that tend to have a low molecular mass,

20:45 so they can evaporate easily and travel through the soil or air.

20:50 For several decades now,

20:51 scientists have suspected that they play a role in tree communication,

20:56 particularly when trees are exposed to stress.

21:00 Because trees can't just run away from predators,

21:02 they may have adapted to make use of VOCC's

21:05 as a warning signal in the event of an attack, giving them more time to prepare.

21:10 A 2013 study cut the leaves of willow

21:13 trees to mimic the damage caused by nibbling creatures.

21:17 This caused them to release VOCC's, and as a result,

21:20 neighboring trees were then more likely to be munched on instead.

21:25 The same was found in another study, this time on older trees.

21:30 They saw the same effect.

21:32 But funnily enough, trees further from the damaged

21:36 ones showed weaker resistance to herbivores,

21:39 suggesting that if a signal was involved,

21:42 there was a limit to how far it could travel through the forest.

21:48 So, we've discussed some of the evidence for VOCC's being used in communication,

21:53 but how did scientists piece this together

21:55 into a theory of what was really going on?

21:59 These studies were suggesting that when a tree is

22:01 attacked by a herbivore and damaged in some way,

22:04 its neighbors could pick up on this and prepare themselves for an attack.

22:09 This is possible as trees have a host

22:11 of chemicals they can use in herbivore defense like

22:15 bitter tasting tannins or toxic alkaloids which have been

22:19 shown to be effective tools in fending off pests.

22:23 And scientists could be pretty sure that it was VOCC's

22:26 that were inducing these responses since any efforts to block

22:30 airborne signals by putting the tree branches in airtight bags

22:34 meant that neighboring trees took more damage from the herbivores.

22:39 But hang on because there's a danger here of entering

22:42 into the same minefield as the woodwide web drama.

22:46 This behavior seems too selfless to work

22:48 with the principle of survival of the fittest.

22:51 Why would a tree bother to send a warning signal

22:54 to its neighbors whilst it was being attacked by herbivores?

22:58 Wouldn't it be better for that tree if its neighbors did get

23:01 damaged since that might leave more light and other resources for itself?

23:06 But consider this.

23:08 What if the damaged tree wasn't intentionally

23:11 sending out a warning to help its neighbors,

23:14 but the neighbors had evolved to make use

23:16 of a warning that the damaged tree was releasing anyway?

23:21 Scientists call this eavesdropping and it explains these results

23:24 in a way that agrees with widely accepted principles of natural selection.

23:29 Any individual plant produces many VOCC's when

23:33 it's attacked by herbivores to signal to itself,

23:37 coordinating a response between distant branches or leaves.

23:41 It is this signal meant for communication

23:44 within each individual plant that other

23:47 plants can pick up on and use to prime their own responses.

23:53 So trees have adapted to eavesdrop on their fellow trees in the forest.

23:58 But perhaps more impressive is their ability to call

24:01 for help during an attack from the most unlikely allies.

24:07 Tarpen are a specific group within the VOCC's and are responsible

24:12 for that nice tree smell you get when you walk into a forest.

24:15 These molecules are also used in tree communication in response to herbivores,

24:20 environmental stress, and changes to the soil microbiome.

24:25 In 2011, an experiment looked into how the European field elm

24:29 responds to attacks from the elmleaf beetle with the help of tarpen.

24:34 See, the elmleaf beetle likes to lay its eggs on the leaves of the tree,

24:38 ready for the larae to feast on them when they hatch.

24:42 But the elm has some tricks up its sleeve to combat this.

24:46 They release turppines, which seem to attract another insect,

24:50 the euphilid wasp, to eat the eggs.

24:53 Like insect bodyguards,

24:55 they can protect the elm from damage and get a nice egg feast as a reward.

25:01 The 2011 study was designed to prove whether it

25:04 was the turppen that were signaling for wasp backup.

25:07 So the authors allowed the beetles to do their thing and lay eggs on the elm

25:11 whilst treating half of the trees with chemicals

25:14 that stop them from being able to make tarpen.

25:17 They then collected all the odor produced by the trees during

25:21 this ordeal and presented them to the wasps to see what they do.

25:26 As the team suspected,

25:27 the wasps spent significantly more time in the test field when

25:31 the tree odors included turppins than when tarpin production had been cut off.

25:38 With these results, the authors concluded that it is

25:41 the turppins that attract the wasps and that the trees

25:44 are far more skilled at fending off beetle

25:47 attacks than we may give them credit for.

25:54 So, as it turns out,

25:56 trees have some amazing ways of interacting with the world around them.

26:01 Like any living thing on Earth,

26:03 trees can sense changes to their surroundings and have

26:07 employed suites of molecules that help them to respond,

26:10 whether it's seeking out food, preventing attacks, or calling out for help.

26:15 So, yeah, trees are amazing, but just maybe not in the way we thought.

26:20 And if nothing else,

26:21 the push back on the woodwide web should motivate us to understand trees better,

26:27 as there are still so many fascinating answers to be found.

26:32 I'll be honest, I originally expected to tell

26:34 a more traditional story of the woodwide web,

26:37 exploring a forest of trees that are all for one and one for all,

26:41 assisting each other with their intricate network of fungal friends.

26:46 But thanks to this new research, that is definitely not how the story unfolded.

26:51 But I hope you'll agree that this is still a tale worth telling.

26:55 Though they strive to be, scientists are not always right.

26:59 Ideas can and should be questioned, details revised,

27:03 and corrections made as their research unfolds.

27:07 Science is built on debate and continuous pursuit of knowledge and truth.

27:12 no matter how long it takes to find what that truth is.

27:17 Sadly, the woodwide web may be one of those cases

27:20 where our heads would turn before the real truth came out.

27:24 I hope this video can go some of the way towards setting the record straight

27:28 and show that the world of popular science

27:30 isn't always as infallible as it may seem.

27:34 And who knows, maybe next week the world will be

27:36 captivated by a new narrative with an equally catchy name.

27:40 But by then hopefully we'll have learned from the woodwide

27:43 web and we can start looking more closely

27:46 at the results and where they come from before

27:49 we start signing book deals and making calls to Hollywood.

27:53 So let's stay curious, look a little closer,

27:56 and keep giving the trees the attention they've always deserved.

28:00 There is so much they can do,

28:02 and they are a huge part of what makes our planet such a wonderful,

28:06 thriving place to call home.

28:11 Fortunately for us though, the worldwide web is very real,

28:15 but does face similar issues to the woodwide web,

28:18 especially when it comes to people trying to steal

28:20 your resources without you necessarily wanting them to.

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