How do trees ‘talk’ to each other?

Suzanne Simard transformed our understanding of forest ecology. She was one of the first scientists to discover the so-called “Wood Wide Web”, the fungal networks that trees use to communicate with each other. She showed the importance of giant elder trees—what she called “mother trees”—and her work inspired the movie “Avatar” and Richard Powers’ novel “The Overstory.” Anne Strainchamps went walking with Simard in New Mexico to see first-hand how a forest is like a kinship network.