🌱 Bugs!
(87) and is a forest zero-sum?
Good Morning
What we’re reading this week:
They Outlasted the Dinosaurs. Can They Survive Us? (NYT)
America’s plan to spend $2trn could help save the planet (E)
The Greendicator
Top Deals of the Week
Battery cell factory startup Our Next Energy raised a $300M Series B at a $1.2B valuation led by Fifth Wall and Franklin Templeton (PRN)
Boston Metal, a startup developing tech to decarbonize steel production, raised a $120M Series C led by ArcelorMittal (BW)
Smart thermostat startup Tado raised a $46.9M round led by Trill Impact Ventures (TC)
Risilience, a climate analytics and risk assessment platform for enterprises, raised a $26M Series B led by the Quantum Innovation Fund (TC)
Nuclear fusion startup NT Tao raised a $22M Series A led by Delek US (PRN)
Energy X, a Seoul-based marketplace that enables the construction of zero-energy buildings, raised a $20.3M Series B led by Shinhan Financial Group (TC)
Nuclear fusion startup Renaissance Fusion raised a $15M seed round led by Lowercarbon Capital (TC)
Greyter Water Systems, a provider of residential greywater reuse systems, raised a $10M Series B led by Ferguson Ventures and Lennar (PRN)
Orbital Sidekick, a startup bringing hyperspectral imaging to oil and gas pipeline monitoring, raised a $10M round led by Energy Innovation Capital (TC)
Tau, a startup building wire for EVs, raised a $9.9M Series B led by Solvay Ventures (PRN)
Enteligent, a developer of solar power optimization and solar-electric vehicle charging tech, raised a $7M seed round from NOVA, Taronga Ventures, and strategic investors (BW)
Senken, a trading platform for on-chain carbon credits, raised $7.5M in funding led by Obvious Ventures (PRN)
Insect breeding technology startup Entocycle raised a $5M Series A led by Climentum Capital (TC)
Green Theory
How Deep Roots Go
Simply seeing trees as jockeying for the best sun in the canopy leaves one blind to the rich relationships concealed beneath the soil. Is a tree’s survival in a forest better seen as a competitor in a market, or a member in a community?
The German botanist who coined the term “symbiosis” tried to assert, in 1885, that trees use fungal networks to share resources, making other trees more than mere threats. Instead of exploring the tapestry of living networks, and learning the key roles of diversity, density, and longevity in forest health, scientists dismissed his work, and lumber companies continued to clear cut forests, or cut the biggest trees.
Today, scientists such as Suzanne Simard and David Read have deepened human understanding of the subterranean forest, and proven much of the Gilded Age glimmers of mycorrhizal science. Fungal networks called mycorrhiza (one kind shown above) bond with plant roots, and share resources bidirectionally with trees. In this way the fungal networks also act as highways for nutrient transfer between trees, even across species.
Has someone really proven trees are capable of cross-species cooperation? Yes.
Dr. Suzanne Simard built on lab experiments, showing trees transferring radioactive resources through their root systems, by setting up a groundbreaking field experiment. After planting 3 different species of tree: a birch, a fir, and a cedar, she connected the birch and fir with their fungus of choice, and gave each its own radioactive sugar. The birch and fir share a fungus that does’t grow into cedar roots, so this third tree served as a control for whether the birch sugars ended up in other roots by leaching through the soil, rather than through fungal transfer.
After the team blocked sun on the fir, the connected 2-tree system proved to transfer nutrients from the birch to the fir. The more they shaded the fir, the stronger the flow to support it from the sunbathing birch. Simard’s findings formally demonstrated that trees can cooperate across species to keep one another alive.
Are you Simarder than a 5th-ringer?
The implication for Simard’s cross-species cooperative result added another complex dimension to the growing body of work already showing fungal communication and resource sharing within distinct tree species (see synopsis video, source of graphics above).
From her perspective, however, this finding would come easily to anyone who “spent time in a forest, in an old forest or a wild forest” since they “know intuitively that it’s not just a dog-eat-dog world. That these plants are together, you know that they work together.” She gained her intuition starting as a self-described “person of the dirt,” covered in this interview, including her story from literally eating dirt to changing forestry science.
Doubtlessly, trees compete as well, but centuries of ignoring their cooperative relationships may impact the way we see human relationships. To go even deeper on how trees communicate, read Simard’s new memoir, or a premier forester’s book from 2015. For narrative perspective on this shift in science, Richard Powers offers a novel including a character styled after Simard, who forms one root of the epic multigenerational story. Regardless of your medium, by seeing forests more clearly, we can connect with our own drives to connect and collaborate.
The Closer
“The bottom of the ocean is a tremendously inhospitable place to live. It's dark, it's cold, and the pressure is fierce. But the creatures that have evolved to live there are wondrous...”
Great stuff! You guys are killing it.