Week 5: Sanctions and chemical warfare

Allelopathy and antifungal defence as chemical suppression of a rival, read against the negotiated exchanges of week 2.

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

Dispatch 05

Date: 22 March 2027
Metaphor: Sanctions and chemical warfare — suppressing a rival rather than negotiating with it
Phenomenon: Allelopathy and antifungal secondary metabolites produced by ectomycorrhizal fungi, suppressing competing fungi and pathogens in the surrounding mycorrhizosphere

Outline

allelopathy: black walnut’s juglone suppresses growth in many neighbouring plants — a chemical border enforced without any agreement between the parties on either side of it
ectomycorrhizal fungi also produce antibiotic and antifungal compounds in the zone of soil they occupy around a root, the mycorrhizosphere, suppressing competing fungi and some plant pathogens there
read as sanctions: this protects an existing trade partnership (week 2) from a third party, without any negotiation between attacker and target
limit of the metaphor: a sanction in statecraft is a communicated threat meant to change behaviour before it is carried out. A fungal antibiotic communicates nothing — it is chemistry that happens to have that effect, whether or not the target could ever have responded to a warning