The ‘Wood Wide Web’ of Plant Communication“树联网”：植物的社交网络

萨拉·布恩　贺丛芝/译

Imagine being a world-class scientist whose work was immortalized in James Camerons movie Avatar， and who inspired a character in Richard Powers Pulitzer-winning novel The Overstory. Others have written about her research， including Peter Wohlleben in The Hidden Life of Trees. Now， we finally hear from the scientist herself， Suzanne Simard， in Finding the Mother Tree： Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest.

想象一下，有这样一位世界级的科学家，她的工作在詹姆斯·卡梅隆的电影《阿凡达》中得到了不朽之名，她也是理查德·鲍尔斯的普利策获奖小说《上层林冠》中某角色的灵感来源。还有人曾写过她的研究，包括彼得·沃莱本的《树木的隐秘生活》。现在，我们终于听到了这位科学家本人的声音，她就是苏珊娜·西玛德。下面就来介绍她的书《寻找母树：发掘森林的智慧》。

Her book comes at a time when governments in Western Canada in particular are being confronted over their continued approval of old-growth forest logging. It is a vital look at the importance of how we harvest and reforest wooded landscapes， and the misconceptions that have plagued the forest industry since the 1980s.

她的书上市的时候，西加拿大的各地方政府正因继续支持砍伐古老的原始森林而遭到反对。这本书在两方面做了重要阐释，一是了解采伐林木和重新造林方式的重要性，二是审视1980年代以来一直困扰林业的错误观念。

The book starts at the beginning of that decade， with Simard checking logged patches of forest （clear-cuts） for a logging company to see if theyd been properly replanted. She is no stranger to forestry， as her family were loggers in south-central British Columbia back when logging was done by hand with a crosscut saw and a horse to drag the logs out of the forest. But the forest industry she now works for is completely different than it was in those early days.

這本书从20世纪80年代初开始写起，当时西玛德服务于一家伐木公司，负责检查森林采伐区（皆伐区）是否妥善完成更新造林。她对林业并不陌生，她的家人是不列颠哥伦比亚省中南部的伐木工人。那时候是手工作业，使用横切锯砍伐树木，然后用马把木材运出森林。她现在从事的森林产业与早期已经完全不同。

She finds that the companys seedlings， placed in regulation holes at a set depth， failed to root and are dying instead. “There was an utter， maddening disconnect between the roots and the soil，” she writes. By looking at the roots of seedlings that are regenerating naturally， she gets an inkling1 that trees need to connect to the fungal （also called mycorrhizal） network in the soil if they are to thrive—without it， they dont have access to vital nutrients.

她发现，这家公司把幼树种在深度一致、分布均匀的坑里，这些幼树无法扎根，正在死去。“树根与土壤之间完全脱节，让人十分恼火。”她写道。通过观察自然再生的幼树根部，她约略了解到，如果树木想要茁壮成长，就需要与土壤中的真菌（也称为菌根）网络相连接。没有真菌，它们就无法获得必需的营养。

The book outlines her quest to learn more about this network， a question around which she shaped her entire car-eer， from working with the forest service studying forest growth， to becoming a university professor in her early 40s. Her research is focused on understanding the underground connections between trees of various species， and how instead of competing， they are actually interdependent and cooperate with one another. Competition is the foundation of evolutionary theory and natural selection， and “the prevailing wisdom was that trees only compete with one another to survive，” she writes. So finding that trees cooperate could present an evolutionary paradox.

这本书概述了她对真菌网络更多的探索，从供职林务局研究森林生长，到40岁出头成为一名大学教授，她的整个职业生涯都围绕这个课题展开。她的研究重点是了解不同树种之间根部的联系，以及它们实际上是如何相互依赖、彼此合作，而不是相互竞争的。竞争是进化论和自然选择的基础，“当时的主流观点是，树木只会为了生存而相互竞争”。她这样写道。因此，发现树木之间相互合作可能造成进化悖论。

As a government scientist， Simard helped foresters understand how to best manage forests. Her early work focused on the government policy of “free-to-grow，” which required contractors to dose harvested forest blocks with herbicide so there wouldnt be any shrubs or trees， like alder and birch， competing with replanted seedlings for water， light， or nutrients. Beginning in the late 1980s， she set out to prove that the pol-icy was misguided2 with a series of well-designed experiments that examined the role of alder and birch in the regrowth of planted seedlings.

作為一名政府的科学家，西玛德帮助护林员了解如何最好地管理森林。她早期的工作侧重于政府的“自由生长”政策，该政策要求承包商在森林采伐区使用除草剂，以免灌木或桤木、桦树等树木与再植幼树抢夺水分、光照或营养。20世纪80年代末，她开始着手用一系列精心设计的实验证明，这项政策是错误的——这些实验研究桤木、桦树对幼树再生的作用。

Her findings were compelling， showing that alder contributed nitrogen to growing fir seedlings， while cutting birch trees made fir seedlings more susceptible to root disease. She used her data to model tree growth over a hundred years， finding that free-to-grow plantations produce a lower volume of timber of poorer quality than plantations not weeded or treated with herbicide. But government decision-makers didnt consider her work long-term or representative enough. The free-to-grow policy wasnt revamped until 2000， almost 10 years after she presented results from the first five years of her experiments.

她的研究成果非常有说服力，研究表明桤木可以为栽培冷杉苗提供氮，而砍掉桦树，冷杉苗根部更容易患病。她用自己的数据模拟了树木100多年的生长过程，发现相比没有铲除周围野草或施用除草剂的林场，“自由生长”的林场产出的木材数量更少、质量更差。但是，政府决策者认为她的研究时间不够长，也不够具有代表性。直到2000年，在她公布前5年的实验结果将近10年以后，“自由生长”的政策才得以修订。

Throughout the book， Simard struggles to have her voice heard by policymakers， though she feels she has to speak up in an attempt to change logging and replanting practices in a way that maintains forest diversity. Part of the problem initially was that she was a woman in a mans world， but her findings also went against commonly held conceptions in the forest industry. Some researchers didnt take her scientific results seriously， even though they were published in peer-reviewed journals like Nature， which coined the term “wood wide web” in 1997 in reference to her research.

在整本书中，西玛德努力让政策制定者听到她的声音。她觉得，为了改变采伐和再植的传统做法，以保护森林多样性，她必须公开发声。最初遇到的问题是，她是一名女性，生活在男性的世界中，她的发现也有悖于林业界普遍认同的观念。有些研究者并没有把她的科学成果当回事，尽管这些成果发表在《自然》等同行评议的期刊上。1997年，《自然》根据她的研究创造了“树联网”一词。

Simard describes her experiments in detail， making it possible for the reader to understand what she is doing， why， and how. Her most groundbreaking experiment was one in which she injected different carbon dioxide gases into the air around a birch and a fir seedling， then measured whether the carbon traveled between the trees. Her results showed that birch and fir communicate： It was “like intercepting a covert conversation over the airwaves3 that could change the course of history，” she writes.

西玛德详细描述她的实验细节，让读者能够理解她在做什么，为什么这么做，以及如何做的。她最具创造性的实验是向一棵桦树和一棵冷杉幼树周围的空气中注入不同的二氧化碳气体，然后判断碳是否在树木之间传播。她的研究结果表明，桦树和冷杉可以互相交流，就像“通过电波拦截了一段可以改变历史进程的秘密对话”，她写道。

This communication happens through a network of dozens of fungi that connect the roots of the trees， and its a finding that Simard makes again and again in her experiments. Simard writes that our recognition that forests have “elements of intelligence” helps us leave behind old notions that they are inert， simple， linear， and predictable.

這种交流通过连接树木根部的几十种真菌网络进行，这是西玛德在她的若干实验中一次又一次发现的。西玛德写道，我们认识到森林具有“智慧因子”，这有助于我们摒弃那些认为森林是惰性的、简单的、线性的、可预测的陈旧观念。

While Simard cant hide her excitement about her experiments， she also weaves in stories about her personal life， including her relationship with her siblings， her marriage， and its dissolution， and her struggle with breast cancer. As she writes， “Our own roots and systems interlace and tangle， grow into and away from one another and back again in a million subtle moments.”

书中，西玛德无法掩饰她对实验的兴奋，还穿插了一些关于她个人生活的故事，包括她与兄弟姐妹的关系、她的婚姻和婚姻的破裂，以及她与乳腺癌的抗争。正如她所写的那样，“我们自己的根和系统相互交错缠绕，在无数个微妙的时刻互相靠近、渐行渐远，然后又回到彼此身边”。

She is currently focused on The Mother Tree projects， a study of the oldest conifers in nine forest stands and how they interact with seedlings around them， especially whether theyre kin or stranger seedlings. She notes that “The forest seemed like a system of centers and satellites， where the old trees were the biggest communication hubs and the smaller ones the less-busy nodes， with messages transmitting back and forth through the fungal links.”

目前，她专注于“母亲树”项目，研究9个林分中最古老的针叶树，以及它们如何与周围的幼树相互作用，特别是研究它们有无亲缘关系。她指出，“森林就像一个由中心和卫星组成的系统，其中老树是最大的通信枢纽，较小的树是不太繁忙的节点，它们通过真菌的连接来回传输信息”。

Simard is working to develop a new philosophy called “complexity science，” hoping to change forestry practices to prioritize the ecosystem over the timber supply. As Simard writes about the path forward： “By understanding [plants] sentient qualities， our empathy and love for trees， plants， and forests will naturally deepen and find innovative solutions. Turning to the intelligence of nature itself is the key.”

西玛德正致力于研究一套名为“复杂性科学”的新理论，希望能改变林业传统，让人们认识到，生态系统比木材供应重要。西玛德对未来的方向是这样写的：“通过理解（植物的）感知特性，我们对树木、植物和森林的同理心和爱自然会加深，并找到创新的解决方案。诉诸自然本身的智慧是关键。”

（译者为“《英语世界》杯”翻译大赛获奖者）