Week 4 Briefing: Espionage
Plants that draw carbon from a mycorrhizal network without ever paying into it, and whether the network has any way to notice.
Rajarshi Rit · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Case file 04
Case file 04- Date
- 15 March 2027
- Metaphor
- Espionage — extracting value from a network while paying nothing into it
- Phenomenon
- Mycoheterotrophy: plants such as Monotropa uniflora and many orchid species that draw carbon from mycorrhizal fungi without photosynthesising any back
Before the session#
Read the assigned material on Monotropa and on orchid seed germination. Bring an answer to: is a mycoheterotroph parasitising the fungus, the tree, or both?
In the session#
Work through what the fungus is actually losing in each case, and to whom. “Espionage” implies a target that has something taken from it — name the target precisely.
Afterwards#
Keep this week’s case in mind for week 6, where the same fungal partner can be a legitimate trader with one host and something closer to this week’s freeloader with another.
The spec
What you bring to the session. Written so a reader can tell whether it has been met without asking you.
- you can name one fully mycoheterotrophic plant genus and one plant group with only initial (seedling-stage) mycoheterotrophy
- you can state what the fungus involved gets out of the relationship, if anything
Teaching team
- Tobias Lindqvist — tutor