Lessons from fungi on markets and economics
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0:01 - 0:06So I stand before you
as an evolutionary biologist, -
0:06 - 0:08a professor of evolutionary biology,
-
0:08 - 0:13which sounds like a rather fancy title,
if I may say so myself. -
0:13 - 0:16And I'm going to talk about two topics
-
0:16 - 0:18that aren't normally
talked about together, -
0:19 - 0:22and that's market economies and fungi.
-
0:22 - 0:26Or is it fun-GUY, or,
as we say in Europe now, fun-GEE? -
0:26 - 0:30There's still no consensus
on how to say this word. -
0:31 - 0:36So I want you to imagine a market economy
-
0:36 - 0:40that's 400 million years old,
-
0:40 - 0:45one that's so ubiquitous that it operates
in almost every ecosystem of the world, -
0:46 - 0:52so huge that it can connect
millions of traders simultaneously, -
0:52 - 0:54and so persistent
-
0:54 - 0:56that it survived mass extinctions.
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0:56 - 1:00It's here, right now, under our feet.
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1:00 - 1:01You just can't see it.
-
1:02 - 1:05And unlike human economies
-
1:05 - 1:08that rely on cognition to make decisions,
-
1:08 - 1:13traders in this market,
they beg, borrow, steal, cheat, -
1:13 - 1:15all in the absence of thought.
-
1:15 - 1:17So hidden from our eyes,
-
1:17 - 1:20plant roots are colonized by a fungus
called arbuscule mycorrhizae. -
1:20 - 1:24Now the fungus forms
these complex networks underground -
1:24 - 1:28of fine filaments
thinner than even threads of cotton. -
1:28 - 1:30So follow one of these fungi,
-
1:30 - 1:33and it connects multiple
plants simultaneously. -
1:34 - 1:38You can think of it
as an underground subway system, -
1:38 - 1:40where each root is a station,
-
1:40 - 1:43where resources are loaded and unloaded.
-
1:43 - 1:45And it's also very dense,
-
1:45 - 1:51so roughly the length
of many meters, even a kilometer, -
1:51 - 1:52in a single gram of dirt.
-
1:52 - 1:57So that's the length of 10 football fields
-
1:57 - 1:59in just a thimbleful of soil.
-
2:00 - 2:01And it's everywhere.
-
2:01 - 2:07So if you passed over a tree,
a shrub, a vine, even a tiny weed, -
2:07 - 2:10you passed over a mycorrhizal network.
-
2:10 - 2:13Roughly 80 percent of all plant species
-
2:13 - 2:17are associated with these
mycorrhizal fungi. -
2:17 - 2:21So what does a root covered in fungi
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2:21 - 2:24have to do with our global economy?
-
2:24 - 2:28And why as an evolutionary biologist
have I spent the last 10 years of my life -
2:28 - 2:31learning economic jargon?
-
2:31 - 2:33Well, the first thing
you need to understand -
2:36 - 2:39is that trade deals
made by plant and fungal partners -
2:39 - 2:41are surprisingly similar
-
2:41 - 2:43to those made by us,
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2:43 - 2:46but perhaps even more strategic.
-
2:46 - 2:47You see, plant and fungal partners,
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2:47 - 2:52they're not exchanging stocks and bonds,
-
2:52 - 2:54they're exchanging essential resources,
-
2:54 - 2:57and for the fungus,
that's sugars and fats. -
2:57 - 3:02It gets all of its carbon
directly from the plant partner. -
3:02 - 3:07So much carbon, so every year,
roughly five billion tons of carbon -
3:07 - 3:12from plants go into
this network underground. -
3:12 - 3:17For the root, what they need
is phosphorus and nitrogen, -
3:17 - 3:19so by exchanging their carbon
-
3:19 - 3:24they get access to all of the nutrients
collected by that fungal network. -
3:25 - 3:27So to make the trade,
-
3:27 - 3:31the fungus penetrates
into the root cell of the host -
3:31 - 3:35and forms a tiny structure
called an arbuscule, -
3:35 - 3:38which is Latin for "little tree."
-
3:38 - 3:42Now, you can think of this
as the physical stock exchange -
3:42 - 3:43of the trade market.
-
3:44 - 3:47So up until now, it seems very harmonious.
-
3:47 - 3:50Right? I scratch your back,
you scratch mine, -
3:50 - 3:52both partners get what they need.
-
3:52 - 3:55But here is where we need to pause
-
3:55 - 4:00and understand the power
of evolution and natural selection. -
4:00 - 4:05You see, there's no room
for amateur traders on this market. -
4:05 - 4:08Making the right trade strategy
-
4:08 - 4:11determines who lives and who dies.
-
4:12 - 4:15Now, I use the word strategy,
-
4:16 - 4:20but of course plant and fungi,
they don't have brains. -
4:20 - 4:21They're making these exchanges
-
4:21 - 4:25in the absence of anything
that we would consider as thought. -
4:26 - 4:31But, as scientists,
we use behavioral terms -
4:31 - 4:34such as strategy
-
4:34 - 4:38to describe behaviors
to certain conditions, -
4:38 - 4:40actions and reactions
-
4:40 - 4:46that are actually programmed
into the DNA of the organism. -
4:46 - 4:49So I started studying
these trade strategies -
4:49 - 4:52when I was 19 years old
-
4:52 - 4:55and I was living in
the tropical rainforests of Panama. -
4:55 - 5:02Now, everybody at the time was interested
in this incredible diversity aboveground. -
5:02 - 5:05And it was hyperdiversity.
These are tropical rainforests. -
5:05 - 5:08But I was interested
in the complexity belowground. -
5:08 - 5:12We knew that the networks existed,
and we knew they were important, -
5:12 - 5:15and I'm going to say it again,
by important I mean important, -
5:15 - 5:18so the basis of all plant nutrition
-
5:18 - 5:21for all the diversity
that you do see aboveground. -
5:22 - 5:27But at the time, we didn't know
how these networks worked. -
5:27 - 5:29We didn't know how they functioned.
-
5:29 - 5:34Why did only certain plants
interact with certain fungi? -
5:34 - 5:37So fast-forward to when
I started my own group, -
5:37 - 5:40and we really began to play
with this trade market. -
5:40 - 5:42You see, we would manipulate conditions.
-
5:42 - 5:46We would create a good trading partner
by growing a plant in the sun -
5:46 - 5:49and a poor trading partner
by growing it in the shade. -
5:49 - 5:52We would then connect these
with a fungal network. -
5:52 - 5:56And we found that the fungi
were consistently good -
5:56 - 6:00at discriminating among
good and bad trading partners. -
6:00 - 6:05They would allocate more resources
to the host plant giving them more carbon. -
6:06 - 6:09Now, we would run
the reciprocal experiments -
6:09 - 6:13where we would inoculate a host plant
with good and bad fungi, -
6:13 - 6:17and they were also good at discriminating
between these trade partners. -
6:18 - 6:24So what you have there is the perfect
conditions for a market to emerge. -
6:24 - 6:26It's a simple market,
-
6:26 - 6:28but it's a market nonetheless,
-
6:28 - 6:32where the better trading partner
is consistently favored. -
6:34 - 6:35But is it a fair market?
-
6:35 - 6:39Now this is where you need
to understand that, like humans, -
6:39 - 6:43plants and fungi
are incredibly opportunistic. -
6:44 - 6:49There's evidence that the fungus,
once it penetrates into the plant cell, -
6:49 - 6:54it can actually hijack the plant's
own nutrient uptake system. -
6:54 - 6:57It does this by suppressing
the plant's own ability -
6:58 - 7:01to take up nutrients from the soil.
-
7:01 - 7:05So this creates a dependency
of the plant on the fungus. -
7:05 - 7:08It's a false addiction, of sorts,
-
7:08 - 7:11whereby the plant has to feed the fungus
-
7:11 - 7:15just to get access to the resources
right around its own root. -
7:16 - 7:22There's also evidence that the fungi are
good at inflating the price of nutrients. -
7:22 - 7:26They do this by extracting
the nutrients from the soil, -
7:26 - 7:29but then rather than
trading them with the host, -
7:29 - 7:32they hoard them in their network,
-
7:32 - 7:37so this makes them unavailable
to the plant and other competing fungi. -
7:38 - 7:39So basic economics,
-
7:39 - 7:43as resource availability goes down,
the value goes up. -
7:44 - 7:48The plant is forced to pay more
for the same amount of resources. -
7:48 - 7:52But it's not all in favor of the fungus.
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7:52 - 7:55Plants can be extremely cunning as well.
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7:55 - 7:56There are some orchids --
-
7:56 - 7:59and I always think orchids somehow
seem like the most devious -
7:59 - 8:01of the plant species in the world --
-
8:01 - 8:04and there are some orchids
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8:04 - 8:07that just tap directly into the network
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8:07 - 8:10and steal all their carbon.
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8:10 - 8:14So these orchids, they don't even make
green leaves to photosynthesize. -
8:14 - 8:16They're just white.
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8:16 - 8:18So rather than photosynthesizing,
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8:18 - 8:19tap into the network,
-
8:19 - 8:21steal the carbon
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8:21 - 8:23and give nothing in return.
-
8:24 - 8:26Now I think it's fair to say
that these types of parasites -
8:26 - 8:29also flourish in our human markets.
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8:29 - 8:33So as we began to decode these strategies,
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8:33 - 8:35we learned some lessons.
-
8:35 - 8:40And the first one was that
there's no altruism in this system. -
8:40 - 8:42There's no trade favors.
-
8:42 - 8:46We don't see strong evidence
-
8:46 - 8:50of the fungus helping
dying or struggling plants -
8:50 - 8:57unless it directly benefits
the fungus itself. -
8:58 - 9:01Now I'm not saying
if this is good or bad. -
9:01 - 9:06Unlike humans, a fungus, of course,
cannot judge its own morality. -
9:06 - 9:07And as a biologist,
-
9:07 - 9:14I'm not advocating for these types
of ruthless neoliberal market dynamics -
9:14 - 9:16enacted by the fungi.
-
9:18 - 9:20But the trade system,
-
9:21 - 9:23it provides us with a benchmark
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9:25 - 9:28to study what an economy looks like
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9:28 - 9:31when it's been shaped by natural selection
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9:31 - 9:35for hundreds of millions of years
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9:35 - 9:37in the absence of morality,
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9:37 - 9:40when strategies are just based
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9:40 - 9:45on the gathering and processing
of information, -
9:45 - 9:47uncontaminated by cognition:
-
9:47 - 9:50no jealousy, no spite,
-
9:50 - 9:52but no hope, no joy.
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9:53 - 9:55So we've made progress
-
9:55 - 10:00in decoding the most basic
trade principles at this point, -
10:00 - 10:03but as scientists we always
want to take it one step further, -
10:03 - 10:08and we're interested in more complex
economic dilemmas. -
10:08 - 10:12And specifically we're interested
in the effects of inequality. -
10:14 - 10:19So inequality has really become
a defining feature -
10:19 - 10:22of today's economic landscape.
-
10:22 - 10:25But the challenges of inequality
-
10:25 - 10:27are not unique to the human world.
-
10:28 - 10:31I think as humans we tend to think
that everything's unique to us, -
10:31 - 10:34but organisms in nature
-
10:34 - 10:39must face relentless variation
in their access to resources. -
10:39 - 10:43How does a fungus
that can again be meters long -
10:43 - 10:47change its trade strategy
when it's exposed simultaneously -
10:47 - 10:50to a rich patch and a poor patch?
-
10:50 - 10:52And, more generally,
-
10:52 - 10:55how do organisms in nature
use trade to their advantage -
10:55 - 10:58when they're faced with uncertainty
-
10:58 - 11:00in terms of their access to resources?
-
11:00 - 11:02Here's where I have
to let you in on a secret: -
11:02 - 11:07studying trade underground
is incredibly difficult. -
11:07 - 11:13You can't see where or when
important trade deals take place. -
11:13 - 11:17So our group helped pioneer
a method, a technology, -
11:17 - 11:22whereby we could tag nutrients
with nanoparticles, -
11:22 - 11:26fluorescing nanoparticles
called quantum dots. -
11:26 - 11:28What the quantum dots allow us to do
-
11:28 - 11:31is actually light up the nutrients
-
11:31 - 11:35so we can visually track their movements
-
11:35 - 11:37across the fungal network
-
11:37 - 11:39and into the host root.
-
11:39 - 11:43So this allows us finally
to see the unseen, -
11:43 - 11:48so we can study how fungi bargain
at a small scale with their plant hosts. -
11:48 - 11:50So to study inequality,
-
11:50 - 11:52we exposed a fungal network
-
11:52 - 11:56to these varying concentrations
of fluorescing phosphorus, -
11:56 - 12:00mimicking patches
of abundance and scarcity -
12:00 - 12:02across this artificial landscape.
-
12:02 - 12:06We then carefully quantified fungal trade.
-
12:07 - 12:09And we found two things.
-
12:10 - 12:11The first thing we found
-
12:11 - 12:16was that inequality encouraged
the fungus to trade more. -
12:17 - 12:22So I can use the word "encouraged"
or "stimulated" or "forced," -
12:22 - 12:25but the bottom line is
that compared to control conditions, -
12:25 - 12:30inequality was associated
with higher levels of trade. -
12:31 - 12:33This is important,
-
12:33 - 12:38because it suggests that evolving
a trade partnership in nature -
12:38 - 12:43can help organisms cope with
the uncertainty of accessing resources. -
12:44 - 12:49Second, we found that,
exposed to inequality, -
12:51 - 12:56the fungus would move resources
from the rich patch of the network, -
12:56 - 13:00actively transport them
to the poor side of the network. -
13:00 - 13:02Now, of course, we could see this
-
13:02 - 13:04because the patches
were fluorescing in different colors. -
13:04 - 13:09So at first, this result
was incredibly puzzling. -
13:10 - 13:14Was it to help
the poor side of the network? -
13:14 - 13:20No. We found that the fungus gained more
by first moving the resources -
13:20 - 13:22to where demand was higher.
-
13:22 - 13:29Simply by changing where
across the network the fungus was trading, -
13:29 - 13:32it could manipulate
the value of those resources. -
13:33 - 13:40Now this stimulated us to really
dig deeper into how information is shared. -
13:40 - 13:42It suggests a high level
of sophistication, -
13:42 - 13:45or at least a medium level
of sophistication -
13:46 - 13:49in an organism with no cognition.
-
13:49 - 13:54How is it that a fungus can sense
market conditions across its network -
13:54 - 13:58and then make calculations
of where and when to trade? -
13:58 - 14:03So we wanted to look about information
and how it's shared across this network, -
14:03 - 14:05how the fungus integrates cues.
-
14:07 - 14:13So to do that, what you need to do is
dive deep in and get a higher resolution -
14:13 - 14:14into the network itself.
-
14:15 - 14:20We began to study complex flows
inside the hyphal network. -
14:20 - 14:24So what you're looking at right now
is a living fungal network -
14:24 - 14:28with the cellular contents
moving across it. -
14:28 - 14:30This is happening in real time,
-
14:30 - 14:32so you can see the time stamp up there.
-
14:32 - 14:35So this is happening right now.
This video isn't sped up. -
14:35 - 14:38This is what is happening
under our feet right now. -
14:38 - 14:41And there's a couple of things
that I want you to notice. -
14:41 - 14:46It speeds up, it slows down,
it switches directions. -
14:46 - 14:48So we're working now with biophysicists
-
14:48 - 14:52to try to dissect this complexity.
-
14:52 - 14:56How is the fungus using
these complex flow patterns -
14:56 - 14:58to share and process information
-
14:58 - 15:01and make these trade decisions?
-
15:02 - 15:07Are fungi better at making
trade calculations than us? -
15:08 - 15:12Now here's where we can potentially
borrow models from nature. -
15:12 - 15:16We're increasingly reliant
on computer algorithms -
15:16 - 15:20to make us profitable trades
in split-second time scales. -
15:20 - 15:24But computer algorithms and fungi,
-
15:24 - 15:28they both operate in similar,
uncognitive ways. -
15:29 - 15:32The fungi just happens to be
a living machine. -
15:32 - 15:35What would happen
if we compare and compete -
15:35 - 15:39the trading strategies of these two?
-
15:39 - 15:40Who would win?
-
15:40 - 15:43The tiny capitalist that's been around
-
15:44 - 15:49since before and
the fall of the dinosaurs? -
15:49 - 15:51My money is on the fungus.
-
15:51 - 15:53Thank you.
-
15:53 - 15:56(Applause)
- Title:
- Lessons from fungi on markets and economics
- Speaker:
- Toby Kiers
- Description:
-
Resource inequality is one of our greatest challenges, but it's not unique to humans. Like us, mycorrhizal fungi that live in plant and tree roots strategically trade, steal and withhold resources, displaying remarkable parallels to humans in their capacity to be opportunistic (and sometimes ruthless) -- all in the absence of cognition. In a mind-blowing talk, evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers shares what fungi networks and relationships reveal about human economies, and what they can tell us about inequality.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 16:09
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for Lessons from fungi on markets and economics | ||
Brian Greene approved English subtitles for Lessons from fungi on markets and economics | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for Lessons from fungi on markets and economics | ||
Joanna Pietrulewicz accepted English subtitles for Lessons from fungi on markets and economics | ||
Joanna Pietrulewicz edited English subtitles for Lessons from fungi on markets and economics | ||
Joanna Pietrulewicz edited English subtitles for Lessons from fungi on markets and economics | ||
Joseph Geni edited English subtitles for Lessons from fungi on markets and economics | ||
Joseph Geni edited English subtitles for Lessons from fungi on markets and economics |