Beyond the confines of the human world, everything is unknown to us; that is, we have clues that help us get an idea of how nature works, but there are still many secrets hidden in the millions of beings that share the planet with us. From a reductionist perspective based on silence and the absence of sound, we might think that the beings that emerge from the ground land only grow and fulfill their function in the food chain without any kind of communication. However, this would be a big mistake because organisms such as fungi keep intricate structures that human senses fail to perceive. New research has helped scientists to unveil the incredible behavior of fungi, they have discovered that they have their own language and can use up to 50 words.
The absence of similarities is perhaps the biggest factor that has led us to overlook that humans are intelligent beings with amazing capabilities, but although fungi do not possess a body like ours and a nervous system to drive it, they have developed their own ways to inhabit the world.
You might find this interesting: Newly discovered bacteria turns matter into 24-karat gold
Over the millions of years they have inhabited the planet, fungi have evolved to create an intricate network of mycelium that extends beneath the earth and keeps them in communication. But it’s not just about their own survival; scientists believe that these mycelial networks are responsible for the distribution of carbon, the key element for life to continue to exist on the planet.
Fungi can emit words
Professor Andrew Adamatzky of the University of Bristol has closely investigated the behavior of fungi through their mycelial networks and discovered that they emit electrical pulses through it that function as a secret language. Surprisingly, he found that the pulse peaks can vary depending on a dozen factors such as light, touch, and chemical changes.
By focusing on four specific species of fungi, Adamatzky was able to analyze the duration of the spikes of electrical impulses emitted by them. In this way, he was able to discern between what appeared to be a variety of unique words uttered by each species of fungi. The biggest revelation; fungi speak and use words.
According to the professor, these lexicons ranged up to 50 words. However, just as humans use certain words more frequently, fungi used only 15 to 20 of these lexicons more regularly. In addition, he was also able to notice that there were longer words than others, for example, the species Cordyceps militaris recorded an average of 8.9 spikes in a word, while Omphalotus nidiformis has only 3.3.
For now, it has not been possible to decipher exactly what each spike refers to, although they could be indicators of changing soil composition and the amount of light available for survival. There are still many mysteries surrounding this intricate network of electrical impulses that may not only integrate the fungi but the entire subway forest like tree roots communicating through the Wood Wide Web, as it has been called.
Text courtesy of Ecoosfera
