Why Read Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

The scientific and literary elegance of Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake's first book, blew me away. He seems innately astute to transmit not only stunning facts about the world of fungi, but the enthusiasm and implications for humanity's outlook and perception of life itself. Sheldrake graciously weaves mycelia into the fabric of life, evolution, identity and philosophy.

"Mycelium is connective tissue, the living seam by which much of the world is stitched into relation." - Merlin Sheldrake.

5 Things You Didn't Know About Fungi

1. Fungi reproduce by fusing with other species, if they are similar enough.

"The mycelium of many fungi can fuse with other mycelial networks if they are genetically similar enough, even if they are not sexually compatible. Fungal self-identity matters, but it is not always a binary world. Self can shade off into otherness gradually."

2. The biggest organism on Earth is a fungus: an Armillaria in Oregon that weighs hundreds of tons across 10 km2, and is somewhere between 2000 and 8000 years old.

3. There are 6-10 times more fungal species estimated on Earth than the number of plant species. Yet, a mere 6% of all fungal species have been described.

4. Fungi are sensitive to the direction, intensity and color of light, as well as to temperature, moisture, nutrient gradients, toxins and electrical fields, and genetic relatedness in fellow mycelia. They could be used as environmental sensors.

5 Fungi invented the stock exchange long before us. Toby Kiers studied the exchanges between plants and fungi and found sophisticated trading strategies to optimize the value in the exchange by plants. The findings depend wildly on the setting: the rarer the phosphate, the higher the price the plant is ready to pay.

Why would fungi offer their services to a network of plants ? Because in this ecology of reciprocity, fungi also benefit from the survival and thriving of these plants. Inspiring, isn't it?

"A mycorrhizal fungus that can keep its various plants alive is at an advantage : a diverse portfolio of plant partners insures it against the death of one of them."

The Lichen Symbiosis, the Cradle of Soil

Do you know lichen was the first symbiosis discovered? It is an organism composed of fungi and algae... but not only! The study of lichens by German botanist Albert Frank is what led him to coin the word "symbiosis" in 1877.

"Lichens are living riddles. Since the 19th century they have provoked fierce debate about what constitutes an autonomous individual."

"Lichens are places where an organism unravels into an ecosystem and where an ecosystem congeals into an organism."

And do you know that these simple, ubiquitous lichens, which cover 8% of the globe's surface, turn rock into soil - the inert into life?

"First, they physically break up surfaces by the force of their growth. Second, they deploy an arsenal of powerful acids and mineral-binding compounds, to digest the rock. Lichens' ability to weather makes them a geological force, yet they do more than dissolve the physical features of the world. When lichens die and decompose, they give rise to the first soils in new ecosystems. Lichens are how the inanimate mineral mass within rocks is able to cross over into the metabolic cycles of the living."

Lichens are the root of my scientific understanding of the spiritual description of non-separation between the living and the mineral (cf. the Diamond Sutra).

It's not just a symbiosis between algae and fungi either: more recently, the lichenologist Tony Spribille identified a third partner in this symbiosis - bacteria! And when looking for bacteria, he found they were always there.

"Lichens don't contain microbiomes, they are microbiomes, packed with fungi and bacteria besides the two established partners. /.../ Now a duet has become a trio, the trio has become a quartet, and the quartet sounds more like a choir."

The partners are different for every lichen group.

"Interestingly, we yet have to find any lichen that meets the traditional definition of one fungus and one algae."

Thus, it's become impossible to provide a single, stable definition of what a lichen actually is.

"Lichens are completely jam-packed full of bacteria." - Spribille "They act like microbial reservoirs that seed barren habitats with crucial bacterial strains."

Fungi, the Springboard of Plant Life

Fungi are what made terrestrial plant life possible:

"Plants only made it out of the water around 500 million years ago because of their relationship with fungi, which served as their root systems for tens of millions of years until plants could evolve their own."

"By the time the first roots evolved, the mycorrhizal association was already some 50 million years old. Mycorrhizal fungi are the roots of all subsequent life on land."

Since plants evolved in association with the mycelial network that connects them under the soil, some plants altogether shedded their leaves and photosynthetic capabilities to start living from hijacking the nutrients stock exchange occurring in the mycelia hub under the surface. The mere existence of these mycoheterotrophs like Voyria and Monotropa questioned my conception of planthood. If plants can be plants without leaves, green and photosynthesis, but basically can't be plants without mycorrhizae, what does that make of plants? A hybrid holobiont - not unlike us humans relying more than we imagine on our microbiome.

"Today, over 90% of plants depend on mycorrhizal fungi./.../ No plant grown under natural conditions has been found without these fungi; they are as much a part of planthood as leaves or roots." - Merlin Sheldrake.

That's a statement to ponder and it reminds me of Fukuoka's One Straw Revolution, where the wise Japanese farmer states that giving names to things and plants is misleading: it disconnects the "thing" from the rest that is a part of it. Naming plants as separate beings from their symbionts make us think in silos instead of systems.

"The view of plants as autonomous individuals with neat borders is causing destruction."

What Fungi Tell Us About Life

This understanding of life as an intertwined system extrapolates to other species too. Microbes maketh cows, who wouldn't be multigastric, wouldn't have a rumen, and wouldn't eat grass if it weren't for their microbes. Similarly, what would be human digestion, human immune systems, or human psychology without our microbiomes?

"There have never been individuals."

"The interaction between gut microbes and brains - the microbiota-gut-brain-axis is far reaching enough to have birthed a new field: neuromicrobiology."

Everything is so intimately connected.

"Plants are socially networked by fungi."

"Is this organism single or plural, I find myself wondering, before I'm forced to admit that it is somehow, improbably, both." "Mycelium is a way of life that challenges our animal imaginations"

With the study of fungi, it becomes clear that studying life is not studying individual entities, but relationships between beings.

"Whether in forests, labs or kitchens, fungi have changed my understanding of how life happens. These organisms make questions of our categories and thinking about them makes the world look different. /.../ We are ecosystems - composed of - and decomposed by - an ecology of microbes, the significance of which is only now coming to life. /.../ To talk about individuals made no sense anymore. Biology - the science of living organisms - had transformed into ecology - the study of the relationships between living organisms." - Merlin Sheldrake

How Fungi Question Our World View and Societal Organization

Grasping the non-existence of individuals thanks to mycelia and microbiomes raises questions about our society and capitalism, which revolve around these concepts.

"So much of daily life and experience - not to mention our philosophical, political and economic systems - depend on individuals that it can be hard to stand by and watch the concept dissolve."

"Modern capitalist thought is founded on the idea of rational individuals acting in their own interest. Without individuals, everything comes crashing down."

This opening to the symbiotic mindset changes how we view science too:

"The study of mycorrhizal fungi requires that an academic symbiosis form between mycologists and botanists. The study of the bacteria that live in fungal hyphae requires symbiotic interactions between mycologists and bacteriologists."

"We commonly think of animals and plants as matter, but they are really systems through which matter is continuously passing." - William Bateson.

Implications For Agriculture and the Climate

Understanding the ways of fungal life has the power of changing how we manage soils, protect them from erosion and loss of fertility, and nurture plants' ability to form these relationships that help them nourish themselves.

"Soil would be rapidly sluiced off by rain were it not for the dense mesh of fungal tissue that holds it together".

"Mycorrhizal fungi are so prolific that their mycelium makes up between a third and half of the living mass of the soils."

This biomass, made of in a large part of glomalin, has tremendous potential for carbon sequestration into soils, in the same time as it binds soil aggregates together, making soil less vulnerable to erosion. Recently, a mycorrhizae provider told me data from 3000 hectares show their mycorrhizal mix boosted carbon sequestration in the soil by an average of 9,5 T of carbon/ha!

"They stitch the atmosphere into relation with the ground."

Mycorrhizae extend the root system of plants and lend their rich enzymatic toolbox which supports the solubilization of nutrients otherwise unavailable to the plant.

To this day, mycorrhizal fungi help plants cope with drought, heat and the many other stresses life on land has presented from the very beginning. What we call plants are in fact fungi that have evolved to farm algae, and algae that have evolved to farm fungi."

"Mycorrhizal fungi can provide up to 80% of a plant's nitrogen, and as much as 100% of its phosphorous" - in return, plants allocate 30% of the carbon they harvest to fungi.

As mycorrhizae hold the soil together, they create space and porosity which increase water retention capacity, thus resilience to water scarcity.

"Mycorrhizal fungi increase the volume of water that the soil can absorb, reducing the quantity of nutrients leached by rainfall by as much as 50%."

This comprehension also has an impact for forest exploitation: with the biggest, oldest trees representing hubs of mycelial connectivity in the forest, they have a big stabilizing role to play in their community.

"Disrupt the rich ecology of microbes that live in the soil - the guts of the planet - and the health of plants too will suffer."

"Selectively remove large hub trees - as many commercial logging operations do in an effort to extract the most valuable timber - and serious disruptions will ensue"

Failing to grasp the importance of fungal and microbial life and protecting crops through the use of wide-spectrum antifungal phytosanitary chemicals comes with consequences for all of the above, and for human and plant health.

"The widespread use of antifungal chemicals has led to an unprecedented rise in new fungal superbugs that threaten both human and plant health"

What Else Can Fungi Do?

Fungi help us make foods that have accompanied us for ages: bread, beer, wine, cheese...

Fungi make drugs - they produce most of modern antibiotics - and not just for humans : they can also help protect pollinators, like Ganoderma that reduces bee mortality.

Fungi make stuff: mycelia from the genus Ganoderma are used to be grown in moulds to take any shape, to replace plastic in packaging, but also as house furniture, decoration, and even architecture. This is referred to as mycofabrication.

Fungi clean stuff: pleurotus fungi can grow on waste and detoxify it. In California, they were used to detoxify the environment after wildfires and runoff from burnt houses. Bioremediation with fungi can be used for soil, waste, as well as water (mycofiltration). Paul Stamets is among those who have raised awareness about the many powers of fungi. He embodies mycoinspiration, as well as Peter McCoy, author of Radical Mycology and a community and movement of citizen science around mycology.

Fungi help us make sense of the brain : the way mycelia grows and prunes tips that are underused is very similar to the way neuronal pathways are connected and pruned back.

"A given mycelium network might have anywhere between hundreds and billions of hyphal tips, all integrating and processing information on a massively parallel basis"

They seem to compute this information like brains, based on very fast decision-making thanks to electrical activity. If we were able to interpret their signals, they could be used as a large-scale environmental sensor, Sheldrake suggests.

Knowing this, do you still feel like fungi do not have cognition?

The Cycle of Life

After seeing how fungi stand at the origin of plant and terrestrial life, we can't close this focus without a grateful consideration for fungi in making life possible in general, through their role in the recycling of organic matter. Life rises from death continuously thanks to the munching and reorganizing of life's building blocks through fungal metabolism, helped by bacteria, insects, worms that all rely on each other.

"Fungi might make mushrooms, but first they must unmake something else."

"Composers make pieces of music. These were decomposers, who unmake pieces of life. Nothing could happen without them."