Mycorrhizal Networks
Visa is the mycorrhizal network of commerce - connecting merchants, banks, and consumers, redistributing money flows for small transaction fees.
Networks thrive when participants contribute to common good, and collapse when hubs exploit rather than serve.
Mycorrhizal networks connect multiple trees simultaneously via fungal intermediaries. In temperate forests, 90% of tree species have mycorrhizal relationships - fungi provide nitrogen and phosphorus; trees provide sugars. A single fungal network can link dozens of trees from different species, sharing resources across the forest. Old trees share water with young saplings. Injured trees receive carbon from neighbors. The network redistributes resources from surplus to deficit.
Business Application of Mycorrhizal Networks
Visa is the mycorrhizal network of commerce - connecting merchants, banks, and consumers, redistributing money flows for small transaction fees. Like fungi, payment networks don't produce visible value but enable resource redistribution across the entire system.
Discovery
Suzanne Simard (1997)
Injected radioactive carbon-14 into mother tree; tracer appeared in dozens of surrounding trees up to 30 meters away through fungal network, revealing forests as collaborative networks rather than competing individuals
Mycorrhizal Networks Appears in 4 Chapters
Mycorrhizal networks redistribute resources from surplus to deficit across forest ecosystems, connecting trees of different species through fungal intermediaries.
Forest resource redistribution networks →The Wood Wide Web functions as biological internet - distributed infrastructure connecting autonomous nodes through 400-million-year-old fungal networks.
The Wood Wide Web explained →Mother trees with 200+ fungal connections preferentially subsidize kin seedlings, demonstrating how network topology creates differentiated resource flows.
Nutrient flows through fungal networks →Mycorrhizal fungi extend effective root systems 10-100×, with hyphae 100× thinner than roots penetrating soil micropores plants cannot access.
Root extension through fungal partnership →