The networked beauty of forests - Suzanne Simard 

Awe-inspiring talk, you can tell how much she loves her work - and nature.

The chemical transfer of communication and networking that the trees perform with other parts of its environment are pretty amazing.

Suzanne Simard you are amazing!

What amazing networks formed by overground trees and underground fungi and the symbiotic exchange between the two for the benefit of both. In fact these networks are studied to find out the shortest and best ways, most economic ways, to serve the furthest away trees/fungi and how to do so if main nodes are down. Man does learn from nature.

That some species of fungi are parasitic and not mutualistic does not undermine the abundance of species of fungi and plant-life which *are* engaged in a complex mutualism, much of which we depend upon for our global environment to be livable at all. Even the parasitic species inhabit their own ecological niche, and were they to disappear, despite their visible damage to certain species w/in that same local environment, could induce a trophic cascade that threatens the sustainability of the whole of the local ecosystem itself. She certainly left out much of the background science, which would have been helpful communicating her point (though there *were* time constraints), as well as oversimplifying some conceptual errors with equating the Earth's fungal network to our brain activity, but there really is excessive deforestation occurring, and it really *is* amazing that the beauty and complexity of these forest systems, which it took the Earth billions of years to form and upon which we very much depend, is being deincentivized and destroyed in an instant so readily by industry-first ideologies. Her emotional charge here, despite being a scientist, is not misplaced.

I found out my online school still uses this video from my little sister. This brings back memories.

Doing our best here in North west Tasmania. See La Poinya forest defence.

chillin in her class watching her ted talk

Interesting topic. Her audience seem to include children so that explains much of her presentation but i would have wanted just a little bit more explanation of the science rather than social networks.

I love forests!

Save our world with your wisdom. thank so much

MARAVILHOSO...

Thank you ! thank you ! thank you thank you !

She is a lovely person and teacher.

This video was great .

Thanks to Suzanne Simard. Thanks to Ted-Ed for the posts.

Anyone reminded of the trees in Avatar?

I really enjoyed that.

The forests really can defend themselves but in other time-dimensions from the people ones. And in the other sense-dimensions from the people ones.

Hemp can replace lumber in every arena. Grow hemp and allow the forests to recover.

We´re wired for healing, hubs wiring, wired as you do. Thank you.

nice concept "wired for healing" ;)

passionate.

Fascinating Stuff~~|!!

U go girl

Suzanne: thank you

🌳🌧️🙏

Reduce the rate of consumption to reduce the rate of deforestation!

Does that mean we only need to water one tree

patricia from the overstory

We need to build molten salt nuclear rectors en masse pronto.

Great speech! The only thing I disagree is the naiff way she thinks we can protect forests.

I just heard this on NPR, and I googled her because the segment sounded extremely unscientific, and I cannot find any information on her formal education, undergrad degree major or graduate degree. Has anyone found otherwise?

Yes ... as is the product of intelligent design she studies. But to remain in the club and be credible, deference must be given to the dogma of faith in blind evolution.

I'm a mother tree

FUNGI

Unless we stop using paper, recycle all cardboard waste etc. There's not really a solution. We are the ones causing deforestation, eventhough we're not physically cutting down the trees. The number of consumption must go down dramatically for them to reduce the rate of deforestation. Just think about the packaging you buy and furniture, flooring, decking etc. Rather plant trees then put dead ones all over your house. This subject is tragic and the fact we think we need these wooden items is the problem. They are our life, the air we breathe and the beauty of the world. She was annoying really.

Avatar is real

I don't think she is an expert on greenhouse gases (Neither am I, and I agree with her on the effects of human produced CO2 on the Earth's climate, but there are far more potent greenhouse gases than CO2, such as methane) She was very involved with the hand movements (too involved I think) and although she tried hard to reach the obvious younger audience with references to family and social networking, her topic simply isn't something that would reach to kids (If she had given the talk to an adult audience or even a teenage audience she could've made the very same topic 10 times more interesting, but no, she gave it to kids). What I did like was her passion for forestry and the environment, and I'm sure that she put a lot of effort into her research, but this talk was so uninteresting it literally would have caused the crickets to cease chirping and the room go silent.

Too much huggy kissy and not enough science! This talk comes across more as a political statement than an educational piece. Explain how you determined that they were a "tree family" and how you determined what the fungi and tree's worked together in a symbiotic relationship. It wouldn't hurt to add credibility by explaining the non-symbiotic fungi relationships like root rot that actually kills trees. Lots of feel good fluff and very little substance.

Those kids look bored as hell. Anyone else noticed this? Just look at their faces. I don't think it's the particular speech because I've noticed this already in many TED talks with school kid audiences. I'm not sure. There seems to be something wrong with this. The strategies of education in general? Maybe. Certainly very different to your ''classic'' TED talk, where what you have is (I'm assuming correctly, I think) a mayority of people personally interested in the subject matter, being scientists and what not. Not so, not at all with these kids. Will they take something out of it? Sure, it's possible. But is this the only way education can work? Even the comfortable seats don't seem to help, they are helping them fall asleep. They are certainly not engaged. Maybe one or two of them, sure, but not in general. With kids it should be interactive, that would help them engage, well it would probably help any age engage. Ok, I could go on and on I guess, so I won't. Obviously you need to do some actual research on this matters, otherwise you are left just with hypothesis, naturally. But again, they sure don't look like they want to be there. To any educators reading/watching this: come on people, we can do better than this. TED talks used to be fascinating (to the audience, I mean, and not just the presenter). Let's not settle for boredom. Otherwise you might just as well let them go out and play. They would be better off.

Mother Trees? No "male"trees in this speech.

I see nothing here. I appreciate and understand the main message - protect forests. I agree, but I don't see any science here and absolutely no research just hippie mumbo jumbo . I certainly don't appreciate a Ph. D. using the the phrase "magical symbiosis".

This is the worst least scientific TED video in a long time. Its okay that this is important and cool stuff, but I enjoy more the other videos that are more accurate.

Sadly these kids looked bored as hell. Perhaps TED-Ed should find a more entertaining way to reach the kids.

Pandora bullshit.

thanks Dr Simard and i like this, except, the biggest greenhouse gas is not CO2. H2O is the major greenhouse gas which contributes to the warming on Earth. H2O is not mentioned as the major greenhouse gas because it is not poisonous to breathe, as is CO2. Increased CO2 results in more H2O gas= warming. My target is to plant 20000 trees. If many people aimed to plant 50 trees/ yr, for 20 years, we could capture a lot of CO2. Ocean acidification is an EMERGENCY, caused by CO2 absorbed in the sea water= Carbonic acid.

37 seconds in: no ma'am, forests are survival of the fittest. that you happen to see beauty is just you. not that i dont appreciate it as well, but dont make it more than it is.

Damn... she's pretty built...muscularly.