Suzanne Simard
Showing that trees are joined below ground by fungal networks, and that large old trees sit at the hubs of them.
The record
- Standing
- foundational work
- Based
- Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia · Vancouver, Canada
- The finding
- Trees are connected below ground by a vast fungal network, which they use to send and receive chemical signals. Large old trees — what she calls mother trees — act as central hubs in it.
- The project
- The Mother Tree Project, established in 2015, testing forest renewal practices against that model.
- Recognition
- CIF-IFC Canadian Forestry Scientific Achievement Award, 2024.
- Under discussion
- The interpretation of common mycorrhizal networks is actively disputed. Karst, Jones & Hoeksema (Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2023) reported positive citation bias in the literature and judged the evidence for resource transfer through networks, and for mature trees preferentially provisioning their offspring, insufficient or absent. Simard and colleagues have published a rebuttal.
Standing is this studio’s placement of the work, not a ranking of the person, and it is the one line here that is a judgement rather than a cited fact.
The work
Simard’s research changed the unit of analysis in forest ecology from the tree to the stand. If seedlings are drawing carbon and signals through fungal connections to established trees, then a clear-cut that leaves no old trees standing is removing infrastructure, not just timber — and the Mother Tree Project exists to test exactly that against operational forestry practice.
The work has had unusual public reach, which cuts both ways. Popular accounts have run well ahead of what the data supports, and the interpretation of common mycorrhizal networks is now genuinely contested among ecologists. The honest position is that the underground connections are real and well documented, while the strength and directedness of what moves through them remains an open question.
The sharpest version of the criticism is Karst, Jones & Hoeksema (2023), which examined how the field cites itself and concluded that two of the three common claims are insufficiently supported, and that the third — mature trees preferentially sending resources and defence signals to their own offspring — had no published peer-reviewed evidence behind it.
To her credit, the response has been published in the open literature rather than in the press, and both sides of it are cited below.
Where to read them
- The Mother Tree Project & Program The research programme, its design, and its publication list.
- Publications — The Mother Tree Project
Sources for this record
- Suzanne Simard — faculty profile, UBC Forestry
- Dr. Suzanne Simard named 2024 recipient of the CIF-IFC Canadian Forestry Scientific Achievement Award
- Response to questions about common mycorrhizal networks — The Mother Tree Project
- Positive citation bias and overinterpreted results lead to misinformation on common mycorrhizal networks in forests — Karst, Jones & Hoeksema, Nature Ecology & Evolution (2023)
Corrections
This record was assembled from the sources above, and nothing in it was inferred to fill a gap. If it is about you and it is wrong, or you would rather not be listed, write and it changes.