Museum cutaway of devil's bolete on beech litter: fruiting bodies above the soil, mycelium running down through the roots.

Spore print

Dispatches

What is covered, week by week, and which topics each lecture draws on.

TB0815 · diorama S. Brandt, NHM Basel · CC BY 4.0

Twelve dispatches from the forest floor, one per week, each pairing a diplomatic term with the real phenomenon it is standing in for. Week one carries the only slide deck the course ships — after that, the material is read, not projected.

  1. 01

    Opening lecture

    Week 1 · 22 February 2027MetaphorCredentials — what it takes to be recognised as a network at allPhenomenonMycorrhizal symbiosis basics: hyphae, the arbuscular/ectomycorrhizal split, and what counts as evidence of connection rather than mere proximity
  2. 02

    Trade agreements

    Week 2 · 1 March 2027MetaphorTrade agreements — negotiated exchange with terms both sides can enforcePhenomenonCarbon-for-nutrient exchange in mycorrhizal mutualism, and biological market theory's account of how the exchange rate is set
  3. 03

    Foreign aid

    Week 3 · 8 March 2027MetaphorForeign aid — resources moved to a needy party without an immediate returnPhenomenonCarbon transfer between connected plants through a shared mycorrhizal network, and the popular 'mother tree' account of that transfer
  4. 04

    Espionage

    Week 4 · 15 March 2027MetaphorEspionage — extracting value from a network while paying nothing into itPhenomenonMycoheterotrophy: plants such as Monotropa uniflora and many orchid species that draw carbon from mycorrhizal fungi without photosynthesising any back
  5. 05

    Sanctions and chemical warfare

    Week 5 · 22 March 2027MetaphorSanctions and chemical warfare — suppressing a rival rather than negotiating with itPhenomenonAllelopathy and antifungal secondary metabolites produced by ectomycorrhizal fungi, suppressing competing fungi and pathogens in the surrounding mycorrhizosphere
  6. 06

    Double agents

    Week 6 · 29 March 2027MetaphorDouble agents — the same actor mutualist on one front, exploitative on anotherPhenomenonContext- and partner-dependent shifts along the mutualism-parasitism continuum in mycorrhizal fungi, and the partner-sanctioning mechanisms that keep this in check
  7. 07

    Border disputes

    Week 7 · 5 April 2027MetaphorBorder disputes — contested territory and the recognition of who holds itPhenomenonRoot and mycelial territoriality: competition for substrate between fungal genets, and self/non-self recognition at contact zones
  8. 08

    Refugee crises

    Week 8 · 12 April 2027MetaphorRefugee crises — displacement and reallocation after a shockPhenomenonShifts in mycorrhizal community composition and resource reallocation after fire, drought or logging disturbance
  9. 09

    Arms races

    Week 9 · 19 April 2027MetaphorArms races — escalating measures and countermeasures between opposed interestsPhenomenonCoevolution between exploitative strategies and the partner-choice and sanctioning mechanisms that oppose them
  10. 10

    Cold war and détente

    Week 10 · 26 April 2027MetaphorCold war and détente — sustained non-aggression punctuated by rare, careful cooperationPhenomenonVegetative incompatibility (het-locus recognition) preventing hyphal fusion between incompatible fungal genets, versus fusion between compatible ones
  11. 11

    Treaties broken

    Week 11 · 3 May 2027MetaphorTreaties broken — an established arrangement destroyed by an outside actorPhenomenonInvasive plants disrupting native mycorrhizal mutualisms via allelochemicals — the case of garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) and native arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi
  12. 12

    The peace conference

    Week 12 · 10 May 2027MetaphorThe peace conference — the closing session where every side's account of the negotiation gets checkedPhenomenonSynthesis of the semester's phenomena, and an explicit accounting of where the diplomatic frame sharpened observation versus where it substituted for one