OpenMycoNet · Knowledge
Understanding Mycorrhizal Networks
What's actually happening beneath the forest floor — what's backed by research, and what remains an open question.
Earth's Oldest Network
Beneath our feet lies the oldest and most extensive communication network on Earth. Mycorrhizal fungi have connected ~70% of all plant species for 400 million years — transporting nutrients, transmitting warning signals, and coordinating life in the soil in ways we are only beginning to understand. They send electrical signals. Measurable. Reproducible. And barely deciphered so far.
That this is not a loose metaphor but a genuine, scientifically established information channel is largely thanks to the pioneering fieldwork of forest ecologist Suzanne Simard, who established the mycorrhizal network as a measurable exchange pathway between plants; a peer-reviewed follow-up study from 2015 showed that plant communities can coordinate complex, adaptive behaviour through it. The exact mechanism, though, remains open: a 2005 study on phosphate uptake observed a single fungal species deliberately adjusting its nutrient uptake to local supply — without being able to identify the signalling molecules responsible within the hyphal network. One plausible candidate: electrical signal propagation in the mycelium. That is precisely where BioComm comes in.
The Question OpenMycoNet Asks
OpenMycoNet asks a simple yet profound question: what happens when we stop analysing soil only from the outside — and start listening to what the network itself is sending? What if the plant has long been telling us it's thirsty, before we can even see it? What if the soil itself signals the approach of a pest, before the first damage appears?
As of today, these questions remain unanswered. They build on the research described above, but deliberately go beyond it: this is OpenMycoNet's own, still-open question — not an already-achieved result.
Critical Context: What's Actually Proven
Not all popular claims about the so-called "Wood Wide Web" are adequately supported by field studies — and OpenMycoNet explicitly incorporates this critique, rather than staying silent about it.
A 2023 analysis published in Nature Ecology & Evolution by Karst, Jones and Hoeksema shows that many public-facing claims about mycorrhizal networks get ahead of the actual field research — through positive citation bias and overinterpreted individual results. In a podcast conversation, one of the authors, Dr. Justine Karst, breaks this debate down for a general audience.
For OpenMycoNet, this is not a counterargument but the actual reason for the project: we measure because the evidence base is still thin — not because everything is already proven.
Why We Measure Anyway
These are not speculative questions. The scientific foundation exists. What is missing is data — lots of it, from different climate zones, substrates, seasons. No single laboratory can provide that. But a global community of people measuring in their gardens, their forests, their greenhouses — can.
Outlook: Open Questions, Not Results
Should it turn out that signal patterns for drought stress, nutrient deficiency or pest infestation can be distinguished from one another, mycorrhizal networks could one day serve as a kind of early-warning system — for agriculture as much as for forest protection. A possible link between healthy networks and soil CO₂ sequestration is also being discussed. These are explicitly possibilities, not results: OpenMycoNet has no measurement data of its own on this yet — which is precisely why the project exists.
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The full list of studies and source references is on the Sources page.