1
00:00:01,458 --> 00:00:05,792
So I stand before you
as an evolutionary biologist,

2
00:00:05,833 --> 00:00:08,143
a professor of evolutionary biology,

3
00:00:08,167 --> 00:00:13,184
which sounds like a rather fancy title,
if I may say so myself.

4
00:00:13,208 --> 00:00:15,684
And I'm going to talk about two topics

5
00:00:15,708 --> 00:00:17,833
that aren't normally
talked about together,

6
00:00:19,042 --> 00:00:22,101
and that's market economies and fungi.

7
00:00:22,125 --> 00:00:26,226
Or is it fun-GUY, or,
as we say in Europe now, fun-GEE?

8
00:00:26,250 --> 00:00:29,542
There's still no consensus
on how to say this word.

9
00:00:30,958 --> 00:00:35,976
So I want you to imagine a market economy

10
00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:39,643
that's 400 million years old,

11
00:00:39,667 --> 00:00:45,476
one that's so ubiquitous that it operates
in almost every ecosystem of the world,

12
00:00:45,500 --> 00:00:51,726
so huge that it can connect
millions of traders simultaneously,

13
00:00:51,750 --> 00:00:53,518
and so persistent

14
00:00:53,542 --> 00:00:56,351
that it survived mass extinctions.

15
00:00:56,375 --> 00:00:59,851
It's here, right now, under our feet.

16
00:00:59,875 --> 00:01:01,375
You just can't see it.

17
00:01:02,083 --> 00:01:05,143
And unlike human economies

18
00:01:05,167 --> 00:01:08,268
that rely on cognition to make decisions,

19
00:01:08,292 --> 00:01:12,643
traders in this market,
they beg, borrow, steal, cheat,

20
00:01:12,667 --> 00:01:14,726
all in the absence of thought.

21
00:01:14,750 --> 00:01:16,518
So hidden from our eyes,

22
00:01:16,542 --> 00:01:20,351
plant roots are colonized by a fungus
called arbuscule mycorrhizae.

23
00:01:20,375 --> 00:01:23,851
Now the fungus forms
these complex networks underground

24
00:01:23,875 --> 00:01:28,101
of fine filaments
thinner than even threads of cotton.

25
00:01:28,125 --> 00:01:30,101
So follow one of these fungi,

26
00:01:30,125 --> 00:01:32,958
and it connects multiple
plants simultaneously.

27
00:01:33,792 --> 00:01:37,559
You can think of it
as an underground subway system,

28
00:01:37,583 --> 00:01:40,059
where each root is a station,

29
00:01:40,083 --> 00:01:43,351
where resources are loaded and unloaded.

30
00:01:43,375 --> 00:01:45,434
And it's also very dense,

31
00:01:45,458 --> 00:01:50,643
so roughly the length
of many meters, even a kilometer,

32
00:01:50,667 --> 00:01:52,226
in a single gram of dirt.

33
00:01:52,250 --> 00:01:57,309
So that's the length of 10 football fields

34
00:01:57,333 --> 00:01:59,476
in just a thimbleful of soil.

35
00:01:59,500 --> 00:02:00,768
And it's everywhere.

36
00:02:00,792 --> 00:02:06,768
So if you passed over a tree,
a shrub, a vine, even a tiny weed,

37
00:02:06,792 --> 00:02:09,726
you passed over a mycorrhizal network.

38
00:02:09,750 --> 00:02:13,434
Roughly 80 percent of all plant species

39
00:02:13,458 --> 00:02:17,268
are associated with these
mycorrhizal fungi.

40
00:02:17,292 --> 00:02:21,143
So what does a root covered in fungi

41
00:02:21,167 --> 00:02:23,809
have to do with our global economy?

42
00:02:23,833 --> 00:02:28,393
And why as an evolutionary biologist
have I spent the last 10 years of my life

43
00:02:28,417 --> 00:02:30,768
learning economic jargon?

44
00:02:30,792 --> 00:02:33,208
Well, the first thing
you need to understand

45
00:02:36,167 --> 00:02:38,684
is that trade deals
made by plant and fungal partners

46
00:02:38,708 --> 00:02:40,893
are surprisingly similar

47
00:02:40,917 --> 00:02:43,143
to those made by us,

48
00:02:43,167 --> 00:02:45,559
but perhaps even more strategic.

49
00:02:45,583 --> 00:02:47,309
You see, plant and fungal partners,

50
00:02:47,333 --> 00:02:51,726
they're not exchanging stocks and bonds,

51
00:02:51,750 --> 00:02:54,184
they're exchanging essential resources,

52
00:02:54,208 --> 00:02:57,226
and for the fungus,
that's sugars and fats.

53
00:02:57,250 --> 00:03:01,809
It gets all of its carbon
directly from the plant partner.

54
00:03:01,833 --> 00:03:07,143
So much carbon, so every year,
roughly five billion tons of carbon

55
00:03:07,167 --> 00:03:11,684
from plants go into
this network underground.

56
00:03:11,708 --> 00:03:16,684
For the root, what they need
is phosphorus and nitrogen,

57
00:03:16,708 --> 00:03:18,518
so by exchanging their carbon

58
00:03:18,542 --> 00:03:23,708
they get access to all of the nutrients
collected by that fungal network.

59
00:03:24,750 --> 00:03:26,684
So to make the trade,

60
00:03:26,708 --> 00:03:31,434
the fungus penetrates
into the root cell of the host

61
00:03:31,458 --> 00:03:35,184
and forms a tiny structure
called an arbuscule,

62
00:03:35,208 --> 00:03:37,851
which is Latin for "little tree."

63
00:03:37,875 --> 00:03:42,184
Now, you can think of this
as the physical stock exchange

64
00:03:42,208 --> 00:03:43,476
of the trade market.

65
00:03:43,500 --> 00:03:46,684
So up until now, it seems very harmonious.

66
00:03:46,708 --> 00:03:49,559
Right? I scratch your back,
you scratch mine,

67
00:03:49,583 --> 00:03:51,726
both partners get what they need.

68
00:03:51,750 --> 00:03:54,934
But here is where we need to pause

69
00:03:54,958 --> 00:03:59,851
and understand the power
of evolution and natural selection.

70
00:03:59,875 --> 00:04:04,934
You see, there's no room
for amateur traders on this market.

71
00:04:04,958 --> 00:04:07,726
Making the right trade strategy

72
00:04:07,750 --> 00:04:10,958
determines who lives and who dies.

73
00:04:12,417 --> 00:04:15,000
Now, I use the word strategy,

74
00:04:16,083 --> 00:04:19,559
but of course plant and fungi,
they don't have brains.

75
00:04:19,583 --> 00:04:21,059
They're making these exchanges

76
00:04:21,083 --> 00:04:24,708
in the absence of anything
that we would consider as thought.

77
00:04:26,500 --> 00:04:30,851
But, as scientists,
we use behavioral terms

78
00:04:30,875 --> 00:04:34,143
such as strategy

79
00:04:34,167 --> 00:04:38,268
to describe behaviors
to certain conditions,

80
00:04:38,292 --> 00:04:40,393
actions and reactions

81
00:04:40,417 --> 00:04:45,583
that are actually programmed
into the DNA of the organism.

82
00:04:46,458 --> 00:04:49,226
So I started studying
these trade strategies

83
00:04:49,250 --> 00:04:51,809
when I was 19 years old

84
00:04:51,833 --> 00:04:55,351
and I was living in
the tropical rainforests of Panama.

85
00:04:55,375 --> 00:05:01,518
Now, everybody at the time was interested
in this incredible diversity aboveground.

86
00:05:01,542 --> 00:05:04,809
And it was hyperdiversity.
These are tropical rainforests.

87
00:05:04,833 --> 00:05:08,476
But I was interested
in the complexity belowground.

88
00:05:08,500 --> 00:05:11,893
We knew that the networks existed,
and we knew they were important,

89
00:05:11,917 --> 00:05:14,851
and I'm going to say it again,
by important I mean important,

90
00:05:14,875 --> 00:05:17,559
so the basis of all plant nutrition

91
00:05:17,583 --> 00:05:20,792
for all the diversity
that you do see aboveground.

92
00:05:22,083 --> 00:05:26,601
But at the time, we didn't know
how these networks worked.

93
00:05:26,625 --> 00:05:28,809
We didn't know how they functioned.

94
00:05:28,833 --> 00:05:33,893
Why did only certain plants
interact with certain fungi?

95
00:05:33,917 --> 00:05:36,601
So fast-forward to when
I started my own group,

96
00:05:36,625 --> 00:05:39,768
and we really began to play
with this trade market.

97
00:05:39,792 --> 00:05:41,851
You see, we would manipulate conditions.

98
00:05:41,875 --> 00:05:45,893
We would create a good trading partner
by growing a plant in the sun

99
00:05:45,917 --> 00:05:48,934
and a poor trading partner
by growing it in the shade.

100
00:05:48,958 --> 00:05:52,226
We would then connect these
with a fungal network.

101
00:05:52,250 --> 00:05:55,934
And we found that the fungi
were consistently good

102
00:05:55,958 --> 00:06:00,101
at discriminating among
good and bad trading partners.

103
00:06:00,125 --> 00:06:05,000
They would allocate more resources
to the host plant giving them more carbon.

104
00:06:06,042 --> 00:06:08,809
Now, we would run
the reciprocal experiments

105
00:06:08,833 --> 00:06:12,643
where we would inoculate a host plant
with good and bad fungi,

106
00:06:12,667 --> 00:06:16,833
and they were also good at discriminating
between these trade partners.

107
00:06:17,750 --> 00:06:24,101
So what you have there is the perfect
conditions for a market to emerge.

108
00:06:24,125 --> 00:06:26,018
It's a simple market,

109
00:06:26,042 --> 00:06:28,226
but it's a market nonetheless,

110
00:06:28,250 --> 00:06:32,333
where the better trading partner
is consistently favored.

111
00:06:33,708 --> 00:06:35,184
But is it a fair market?

112
00:06:35,208 --> 00:06:38,934
Now this is where you need
to understand that, like humans,

113
00:06:38,958 --> 00:06:43,167
plants and fungi
are incredibly opportunistic.

114
00:06:44,250 --> 00:06:49,268
There's evidence that the fungus,
once it penetrates into the plant cell,

115
00:06:49,292 --> 00:06:54,393
it can actually hijack the plant's
own nutrient uptake system.

116
00:06:54,417 --> 00:06:57,476
It does this by suppressing
the plant's own ability

117
00:06:57,500 --> 00:07:00,601
to take up nutrients from the soil.

118
00:07:00,625 --> 00:07:05,226
So this creates a dependency
of the plant on the fungus.

119
00:07:05,250 --> 00:07:08,184
It's a false addiction, of sorts,

120
00:07:08,208 --> 00:07:10,893
whereby the plant has to feed the fungus

121
00:07:10,917 --> 00:07:15,250
just to get access to the resources
right around its own root.

122
00:07:16,333 --> 00:07:21,934
There's also evidence that the fungi are
good at inflating the price of nutrients.

123
00:07:21,958 --> 00:07:26,143
They do this by extracting
the nutrients from the soil,

124
00:07:26,167 --> 00:07:29,268
but then rather than
trading them with the host,

125
00:07:29,292 --> 00:07:31,518
they hoard them in their network,

126
00:07:31,542 --> 00:07:37,042
so this makes them unavailable
to the plant and other competing fungi.

127
00:07:37,792 --> 00:07:39,309
So basic economics,

128
00:07:39,333 --> 00:07:43,476
as resource availability goes down,
the value goes up.

129
00:07:43,500 --> 00:07:48,434
The plant is forced to pay more
for the same amount of resources.

130
00:07:48,458 --> 00:07:51,684
But it's not all in favor of the fungus.

131
00:07:51,708 --> 00:07:54,976
Plants can be extremely cunning as well.

132
00:07:55,000 --> 00:07:56,309
There are some orchids --

133
00:07:56,333 --> 00:07:59,268
and I always think orchids somehow
seem like the most devious

134
00:07:59,292 --> 00:08:01,184
of the plant species in the world --

135
00:08:01,208 --> 00:08:03,559
and there are some orchids

136
00:08:03,583 --> 00:08:07,393
that just tap directly into the network

137
00:08:07,417 --> 00:08:09,809
and steal all their carbon.

138
00:08:09,833 --> 00:08:14,268
So these orchids, they don't even make
green leaves to photosynthesize.

139
00:08:14,292 --> 00:08:15,643
They're just white.

140
00:08:15,667 --> 00:08:17,809
So rather than photosynthesizing,

141
00:08:17,833 --> 00:08:19,268
tap into the network,

142
00:08:19,292 --> 00:08:20,726
steal the carbon

143
00:08:20,750 --> 00:08:22,625
and give nothing in return.

144
00:08:23,583 --> 00:08:26,351
Now I think it's fair to say
that these types of parasites

145
00:08:26,375 --> 00:08:28,934
also flourish in our human markets.

146
00:08:28,958 --> 00:08:32,893
So as we began to decode these strategies,

147
00:08:32,917 --> 00:08:34,768
we learned some lessons.

148
00:08:34,792 --> 00:08:40,101
And the first one was that
there's no altruism in this system.

149
00:08:40,125 --> 00:08:42,018
There's no trade favors.

150
00:08:42,042 --> 00:08:45,684
We don't see strong evidence

151
00:08:45,708 --> 00:08:50,476
of the fungus helping
dying or struggling plants

152
00:08:50,500 --> 00:08:56,875
unless it directly benefits
the fungus itself.

153
00:08:58,333 --> 00:09:01,434
Now I'm not saying
if this is good or bad.

154
00:09:01,458 --> 00:09:05,976
Unlike humans, a fungus, of course,
cannot judge its own morality.

155
00:09:06,000 --> 00:09:07,268
And as a biologist,

156
00:09:07,292 --> 00:09:14,059
I'm not advocating for these types
of ruthless neoliberal market dynamics

157
00:09:14,083 --> 00:09:15,667
enacted by the fungi.

158
00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:19,750
But the trade system,

159
00:09:21,250 --> 00:09:23,375
it provides us with a benchmark

160
00:09:24,833 --> 00:09:28,184
to study what an economy looks like

161
00:09:28,208 --> 00:09:31,018
when it's been shaped by natural selection

162
00:09:31,042 --> 00:09:34,684
for hundreds of millions of years

163
00:09:34,708 --> 00:09:37,351
in the absence of morality,

164
00:09:37,375 --> 00:09:39,934
when strategies are just based

165
00:09:39,958 --> 00:09:44,809
on the gathering and processing
of information,

166
00:09:44,833 --> 00:09:47,268
uncontaminated by cognition:

167
00:09:47,292 --> 00:09:49,809
no jealousy, no spite,

168
00:09:49,833 --> 00:09:51,708
but no hope, no joy.

169
00:09:52,583 --> 00:09:54,976
So we've made progress

170
00:09:55,000 --> 00:09:59,559
in decoding the most basic
trade principles at this point,

171
00:09:59,583 --> 00:10:02,726
but as scientists we always
want to take it one step further,

172
00:10:02,750 --> 00:10:07,500
and we're interested in more complex
economic dilemmas.

173
00:10:08,417 --> 00:10:12,500
And specifically we're interested
in the effects of inequality.

174
00:10:13,500 --> 00:10:19,184
So inequality has really become
a defining feature

175
00:10:19,208 --> 00:10:21,542
of today's economic landscape.

176
00:10:22,333 --> 00:10:24,809
But the challenges of inequality

177
00:10:24,833 --> 00:10:27,476
are not unique to the human world.

178
00:10:27,500 --> 00:10:31,268
I think as humans we tend to think
that everything's unique to us,

179
00:10:31,292 --> 00:10:33,934
but organisms in nature

180
00:10:33,958 --> 00:10:39,226
must face relentless variation
in their access to resources.

181
00:10:39,250 --> 00:10:42,518
How does a fungus
that can again be meters long

182
00:10:42,542 --> 00:10:47,434
change its trade strategy
when it's exposed simultaneously

183
00:10:47,458 --> 00:10:50,393
to a rich patch and a poor patch?

184
00:10:50,417 --> 00:10:51,684
And, more generally,

185
00:10:51,708 --> 00:10:54,976
how do organisms in nature
use trade to their advantage

186
00:10:55,000 --> 00:10:57,726
when they're faced with uncertainty

187
00:10:57,750 --> 00:11:00,268
in terms of their access to resources?

188
00:11:00,292 --> 00:11:02,476
Here's where I have
to let you in on a secret:

189
00:11:02,500 --> 00:11:07,393
studying trade underground
is incredibly difficult.

190
00:11:07,417 --> 00:11:13,434
You can't see where or when
important trade deals take place.

191
00:11:13,458 --> 00:11:17,434
So our group helped pioneer
a method, a technology,

192
00:11:17,458 --> 00:11:22,101
whereby we could tag nutrients
with nanoparticles,

193
00:11:22,125 --> 00:11:26,059
fluorescing nanoparticles
called quantum dots.

194
00:11:26,083 --> 00:11:28,476
What the quantum dots allow us to do

195
00:11:28,500 --> 00:11:31,351
is actually light up the nutrients

196
00:11:31,375 --> 00:11:34,518
so we can visually track their movements

197
00:11:34,542 --> 00:11:36,934
across the fungal network

198
00:11:36,958 --> 00:11:39,101
and into the host root.

199
00:11:39,125 --> 00:11:42,768
So this allows us finally
to see the unseen,

200
00:11:42,792 --> 00:11:48,101
so we can study how fungi bargain
at a small scale with their plant hosts.

201
00:11:48,125 --> 00:11:49,768
So to study inequality,

202
00:11:49,792 --> 00:11:51,934
we exposed a fungal network

203
00:11:51,958 --> 00:11:55,851
to these varying concentrations
of fluorescing phosphorus,

204
00:11:55,875 --> 00:11:59,559
mimicking patches
of abundance and scarcity

205
00:11:59,583 --> 00:12:01,583
across this artificial landscape.

206
00:12:02,458 --> 00:12:05,583
We then carefully quantified fungal trade.

207
00:12:07,167 --> 00:12:08,750
And we found two things.

208
00:12:09,667 --> 00:12:11,351
The first thing we found

209
00:12:11,375 --> 00:12:16,125
was that inequality encouraged
the fungus to trade more.

210
00:12:17,333 --> 00:12:22,059
So I can use the word "encouraged"
or "stimulated" or "forced,"

211
00:12:22,083 --> 00:12:25,351
but the bottom line is
that compared to control conditions,

212
00:12:25,375 --> 00:12:29,625
inequality was associated
with higher levels of trade.

213
00:12:31,292 --> 00:12:33,143
This is important,

214
00:12:33,167 --> 00:12:38,309
because it suggests that evolving
a trade partnership in nature

215
00:12:38,333 --> 00:12:42,875
can help organisms cope with
the uncertainty of accessing resources.

216
00:12:43,833 --> 00:12:49,375
Second, we found that,
exposed to inequality,

217
00:12:50,792 --> 00:12:55,726
the fungus would move resources
from the rich patch of the network,

218
00:12:55,750 --> 00:12:59,893
actively transport them
to the poor side of the network.

219
00:12:59,917 --> 00:13:01,559
Now, of course, we could see this

220
00:13:01,583 --> 00:13:04,476
because the patches
were fluorescing in different colors.

221
00:13:04,500 --> 00:13:09,000
So at first, this result
was incredibly puzzling.

222
00:13:10,042 --> 00:13:13,893
Was it to help
the poor side of the network?

223
00:13:13,917 --> 00:13:19,768
No. We found that the fungus gained more
by first moving the resources

224
00:13:19,792 --> 00:13:22,351
to where demand was higher.

225
00:13:22,375 --> 00:13:28,726
Simply by changing where
across the network the fungus was trading,

226
00:13:28,750 --> 00:13:32,083
it could manipulate
the value of those resources.

227
00:13:33,375 --> 00:13:39,601
Now this stimulated us to really
dig deeper into how information is shared.

228
00:13:39,625 --> 00:13:42,309
It suggests a high level
of sophistication,

229
00:13:42,333 --> 00:13:45,476
or at least a medium level
of sophistication

230
00:13:45,500 --> 00:13:48,601
in an organism with no cognition.

231
00:13:48,625 --> 00:13:54,018
How is it that a fungus can sense
market conditions across its network

232
00:13:54,042 --> 00:13:58,059
and then make calculations
of where and when to trade?

233
00:13:58,083 --> 00:14:02,643
So we wanted to look about information
and how it's shared across this network,

234
00:14:02,667 --> 00:14:05,292
how the fungus integrates cues.

235
00:14:07,208 --> 00:14:12,601
So to do that, what you need to do is
dive deep in and get a higher resolution

236
00:14:12,625 --> 00:14:14,375
into the network itself.

237
00:14:15,375 --> 00:14:19,768
We began to study complex flows
inside the hyphal network.

238
00:14:19,792 --> 00:14:23,976
So what you're looking at right now
is a living fungal network

239
00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:28,101
with the cellular contents
moving across it.

240
00:14:28,125 --> 00:14:30,059
This is happening in real time,

241
00:14:30,083 --> 00:14:32,434
so you can see the time stamp up there.

242
00:14:32,458 --> 00:14:35,143
So this is happening right now.
This video isn't sped up.

243
00:14:35,167 --> 00:14:37,601
This is what is happening
under our feet right now.

244
00:14:37,625 --> 00:14:40,934
And there's a couple of things
that I want you to notice.

245
00:14:40,958 --> 00:14:45,559
It speeds up, it slows down,
it switches directions.

246
00:14:45,583 --> 00:14:48,351
So we're working now with biophysicists

247
00:14:48,375 --> 00:14:51,768
to try to dissect this complexity.

248
00:14:51,792 --> 00:14:55,768
How is the fungus using
these complex flow patterns

249
00:14:55,792 --> 00:14:58,434
to share and process information

250
00:14:58,458 --> 00:15:00,625
and make these trade decisions?

251
00:15:01,875 --> 00:15:07,292
Are fungi better at making
trade calculations than us?

252
00:15:08,250 --> 00:15:12,226
Now here's where we can potentially
borrow models from nature.

253
00:15:12,250 --> 00:15:15,559
We're increasingly reliant
on computer algorithms

254
00:15:15,583 --> 00:15:20,184
to make us profitable trades
in split-second time scales.

255
00:15:20,208 --> 00:15:23,768
But computer algorithms and fungi,

256
00:15:23,792 --> 00:15:27,583
they both operate in similar,
uncognitive ways.

257
00:15:28,875 --> 00:15:32,101
The fungi just happens to be
a living machine.

258
00:15:32,125 --> 00:15:35,434
What would happen
if we compare and compete

259
00:15:35,458 --> 00:15:38,601
the trading strategies of these two?

260
00:15:38,625 --> 00:15:39,976
Who would win?

261
00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:43,476
The tiny capitalist that's been around

262
00:15:43,500 --> 00:15:48,851
since before and
the fall of the dinosaurs?

263
00:15:48,875 --> 00:15:50,708
My money is on the fungus.

264
00:15:51,417 --> 00:15:52,684
Thank you.

265
00:15:52,708 --> 00:15:56,000
(Applause)