I know its not that sexy, but soil is a hugely diverse ecosystem that is barely understood. There is lots of science to be done trying to classify and work out the mechanics of how nutrient is filters transmuted and transported
It we want to feed the world, when that world is throwing more extreme weather at us, we need to work out how to do companion planting at scale. (think how east coast indians did farming) IF we can make practical farm robots, we can not only remove the need for herbiscides (direct manual intervention, ie physically weeding buy pulling out the seedlings) but also keep ground cover even after cropping, meaning much less water loss.
Soil degradation is a real threat. the way we farm now means we have massive monocultures, large tracks of land that are bare for weeks on end. All of this requires lots of inputs to be productive. The promise of non-pesticide farming is that you get much richer soil, because you're not killing off the stuff that lives there.
But we need to understand what makes a soil productive, however that changes based on location and crops.
Article is a bit short. Here's a few more to flesh out the topic and the plant, tho honestly only by a smidge (none of these links require javascript enabled)
Maybe it is best to think of many plants as photochemical food factory extensions for mycorrhizal fungi. Some plants can do without but many will suffer without a specific mycorrhizae.
I am more and more convinced that the separation into different living beings is somewhat artificial. If there are multicellular organisms, then an ecosystem as a whole can also be considered a life form.
Maybe a key distinction is collaboration vs. competition. The more collaboration between individual "units" (e.g. cells in a multicellular organism or organisms in an ecosystem) the more they behave like a single thing. Ant colonies are also a strong example.
To an extent, yes. I'd say the difference is government systems. A single organism, or something like the human body, has more evolved, more sophisticated government mechanisms. The body is mostly a cooperative civilisation of cells. Of course, there's still natural competition among them, in many shapes and forms. The cells are held together in a coherent, agile, resilient organism by governance systems strong enough to keep internal Darwinism from becoming civil war.
This isn't really a new thought. It's exactly what's meant by terms such as "circle of life" or "ecosystem". The separation of individual beings is entirely artificial, or if your being more charitable and technical, analytical and descriptive.
Science is not reality. We abstract reality to make nice and useful models. Reality violates our models constantly.
Didn’t claim it was. It’s just something difficult to really accept, at least to me, inhabiting a body that definitely feels very distinct from my environment.
I know its not that sexy, but soil is a hugely diverse ecosystem that is barely understood. There is lots of science to be done trying to classify and work out the mechanics of how nutrient is filters transmuted and transported
It we want to feed the world, when that world is throwing more extreme weather at us, we need to work out how to do companion planting at scale. (think how east coast indians did farming) IF we can make practical farm robots, we can not only remove the need for herbiscides (direct manual intervention, ie physically weeding buy pulling out the seedlings) but also keep ground cover even after cropping, meaning much less water loss.
Soil degradation is a real threat. the way we farm now means we have massive monocultures, large tracks of land that are bare for weeks on end. All of this requires lots of inputs to be productive. The promise of non-pesticide farming is that you get much richer soil, because you're not killing off the stuff that lives there.
But we need to understand what makes a soil productive, however that changes based on location and crops.
Article is a bit short. Here's a few more to flesh out the topic and the plant, tho honestly only by a smidge (none of these links require javascript enabled)
https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/botany/news/plant-pre...
https://www.earth.com/news/native-fungi-native-trees-plants-...
https://matjournals.net/pharmacy/index.php/IJPPR/article/vie...
https://ijpsr.com/?action=download_pdf&postid=97498
Note: coauthor Toby Kiers received the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement of 2026. She also created SPUN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_the_Protection_of_...
Maybe it is best to think of many plants as photochemical food factory extensions for mycorrhizal fungi. Some plants can do without but many will suffer without a specific mycorrhizae.
I am more and more convinced that the separation into different living beings is somewhat artificial. If there are multicellular organisms, then an ecosystem as a whole can also be considered a life form.
Maybe a key distinction is collaboration vs. competition. The more collaboration between individual "units" (e.g. cells in a multicellular organism or organisms in an ecosystem) the more they behave like a single thing. Ant colonies are also a strong example.
To an extent, yes. I'd say the difference is government systems. A single organism, or something like the human body, has more evolved, more sophisticated government mechanisms. The body is mostly a cooperative civilisation of cells. Of course, there's still natural competition among them, in many shapes and forms. The cells are held together in a coherent, agile, resilient organism by governance systems strong enough to keep internal Darwinism from becoming civil war.
This isn't really a new thought. It's exactly what's meant by terms such as "circle of life" or "ecosystem". The separation of individual beings is entirely artificial, or if your being more charitable and technical, analytical and descriptive.
Science is not reality. We abstract reality to make nice and useful models. Reality violates our models constantly.
Didn’t claim it was. It’s just something difficult to really accept, at least to me, inhabiting a body that definitely feels very distinct from my environment.
Gaia theory - James Lovelock.
You find it difficult to accept, or is it just your brain that finds it difficult to accept?
Nice looking fern at left of the scientist in the image appears to be Microsorum pustulatum, aka "Kangaroo fern", a climber/spreading rhizome.
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