How plants and fungi trade resources without a brain

['Alex Mayyasi', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Vertical-Align Middle .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar Is .Alignleft .Alignright'] TPR: The Public's Radio 2025-08-26 12:56:51

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi build efficient transportation networks underground to connect to plants that they trade with. Her goal is not to figure out whether fungi can trade and make economic decisions as well as us brainy humans. So if plants and fungi had been exchanging resources for millions of years, they must have strategies to prevent freeloading. (Reinhard Dirscherl | Getty Images)Free Trade, Circa 500 Million BCUnlike with the wrasse fish, Kiers could not directly observe plants and fungi trade. In one experiment, for example, she tracked the exchange of resources between fungi and plants when some of the plants were in full shade and the others in full sun .