looks for her next line:

While this research has reshaped thinking in forest ecology, scientists continue to study how extensive and ecologically significant these inter-tree connections are.
Source: Simard, S. W., Perry, D. A., Jones, M. D., Myrold, D. D., Durall, D. M., & Molina, R. (1997).

Simard has proposed that older “mother trees” might act as central hubs within this system, helping maintain resilience and balance within the forest ecosystem.

These findings suggest that trees may not exist solely as individual competitors but can also be interconnected participants in a larger underground web of fungi that facilitates resource sharing and communication.

Her experiments found that carbon could move in both directions between the two species through shared fungal (mycorrhizal) networks underground, and that under certain conditions — for example, when the fir was shaded — the birch transferred more carbon to the fir.

During her doctoral and later research, she used isotopic tracers such as carbon-13 and carbon-14 to follow nutrient movements between birch and fir seedlings.