Mycorrhizae

With each new book about nature that I read, I find the story of competition for limited resources less and less compelling. The understories and overstories of trees are generous spaces, in which sick trees are nourished or dying trees send forth warnings of infestation that others may prepare against the onslaught. Stromatolites exist as a community of bacteria and other microorganisms, each contributing in its own way and reliant in its own way on the activities of others. We live in networks with one another, and we live and die by the strength of our community. If I lose, it is your loss too. If you lose, I grieve with you. Individualistic Western society embraced the model of survival of the fittest, but communalism recognizes that though this story has been explanatorily useful, it is not the final word.