Recent reading

[luzula]

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older (2023)
For book club; I listened to the audiobook. This was...perfectly okay? But did not really wow me. I think part of that was the setting: I could not really suspend my disbelief that humans could fuck up Earth to such an extent that it would be a better alternative to move to Jupiter. And the plot kept bringing up issues of ecology, so it was difficult to ignore.

Saying No to a Farm-Free Future by Chris Smaje (2023)
Now that I think of it, this book and the one above are kind of in conversation with each other, about how possible it is for humans to survive without Earth's ecosystems? I don't know that it was worth reading for me, since I already follow the author's blog, and had already got the gist of it. But anyway, it's arguing against ecomodernist claims that it would be possible (or desirable) to feed humanity on manufactured food from factories. Mainly on the basis that it would cost far too much energy in a future which is already likely to be less energy-rich than today, but it also brings up various social aspects.

I also read a Swedish book about the ground-living fungi of sandy pine forests, but probably no one in my DW circle is interested in that one.

Comments

[sanguinity]

*comes crashing into your comment section* TELL ME ABOUT THE GROUND-LIVING FUNGI OF SANDY PINE FORESTS! Is it like the ground-living fungi of Douglas fir forests?

[luzula]

Hee, all right. : )

It's about the ground-living fungi having mycorrhizal relationships with Scots pines in Swedish boreal forests (obviously we don't call it the Scots pine in Swedish, it's fully native to Sweden as well). As opposed to the wood-living fungi of pine forests, which are saprophytes on dead pine wood. Sandy pine forests have a special community of ground-living fungi, partly because the vegetation is often scanty, which makes it easier for fungi fruiting bodies to come up. They also burn frequently, and the fungi as well as the pines are adapted to that (the sand isolates the mycelia from heat well). But these species are often threatened because the flat sandy ground makes the forests easy to log, and easy to use when building infrastructure such as roads. The good news is that even sandy pine forests which look kind of "boring" (younger trees, not much dead wood) can have high natural values if they were never clearcut, because the tree continuity means that the mycorrhizal fungi didn't die. This is only apparent during "mushroom season" in August-October when the fruiting bodies come up, and not every year is a good mushroom year. Swedish nature conservation has only recognized these values in the last decade or two. These forests are also important for Sami reindeer grazing in winter, because there are often Cladina lichens on the ground, and the grazing will be ruined if the forest is clear-cut and re-planted.

I hope I have satisfied your curiosity! I know nothing about the ground-living fungi of Douglas fir forests, please tell me about that?

[sanguinity]

*goes and looks it up in my Olympic/Cascade natural history book [1] so I'm not doing this entirely from memory*

Douglas fir also has mycorrhizal relationships with fungi, where the fungi suppress the tree's root hairs (1mm diameter) and sustitute their own (.003mm), providing a much more efficient absorptive surface area, making nitrogen and phosphorous available that the tree would not otherwise be able to access, and in some cases boring into solid rock and providing nutrients that way. The fungi sheaths on the roots can also protect from bacterial infection and parasitic fungi, secreting antibiotics against the one and selective toxins against the other.

The trees, in addition to supplying carbohydrates to the fungi, also provide water during the dry summer months (the trees being more deeply rooted than the fungi network extends). The tree-fungi network also provides carbohydrates to seedlings and saplings that are shaded-out by the adult overstory, keeping them alive until they are big enough to donate carbohydrates in their own turn. There's also a whole class of non-green plants (including some orchids) that never produce carbohydrates of their own, but live off the fungal carbohydrate interchange for their entire life cycle. (Commentary by me: these plants are eerie and cool and I always love spotting one. They're pretty much just a stalk and flowers, and are often a translucent white or red.)

[1] Dave Matthews, Cascade-Olympic Natural History: A Trailside Reference, 2nd edition, 1999.

[regshoe]

I agree about the non-photosynthetic orchids! I've seen bird's-nest orchid (Neottia nidus-avis) in a beech wood; I have heard legends of but never seen ghost orchid (Epipogium aphyllum), which is very cool and beautifully eerie in both looks and habits.

[luzula]

I have seen Neottia nidus-avis a few times, but it's rare in Sweden. I have also seen Epipogium aphyllum, which we call "lady of the forest" (skogsfru). It's so beautiful! But Corallorhiza trifida is a more common such orchid in the boreal forest, which I've seen lots of times.

[regshoe]

E. aphyllum is very rare here—I would love to see it! I have not seen C. trifida, which seems to be mostly not found in England, either—that's another beautiful one.

[luzula]

Cool, thanks! A lot of that is common to temperate and boreal forests in Sweden as well, I think. Mycorrhiza is an amazing thing!

[regshoe]

That is fascinating, thank you for writing it up :) There are a lot of mycorrhizal fungi in woodlands here too (well, I suppose they're a major feature of woodlands everywhere), and it's interesting to hear about how they work in different ecosystems—woods here don't ever tend to burn, for instance, and it's very cool that the Swedish pine forest fungi are fire-adapted like the plants. Hooray that conservationists are now recognising their value!

[regshoe]

O_o Moving to Jupiter does sound like it would present certain rather extreme logistical problems.

Chris Smaje's stuff sounds interesting—I'll keep an eye out for those books. Interesting that he's apparently been arguing about this with George Monbiot, whose work I admired very much a few years ago, though I haven't been keeping up with it recently.

Well, my Swedish may not be good enough to read the book in question, but the ground-living fungi of sandy pine forests—and all obscure corners of natural history—are always interesting :)

[luzula]

And not only logistical problems!

It seems like George Monbiot has been shifting his opinions/positions to an ecomodernist position (everyone should be living in cities and eating factory food, leaving nature free to flourish outside the cities).

Check out my reply to sanguinity above for more on the ground-living fungi of sandy pine forests!

[regshoe]

an ecomodernist position (everyone should be living in cities and eating factory food, leaving nature free to flourish outside the cities).

Ah, I see—whatever its merits for wildlife (which in some cases seem doubtful), that is a very unappealing prospect.

[luzula]

I agree!

[ysilme]

and all obscure corners of natural history—are always interesting :)
I second that. I might not actually read a whole book about it/the fungi, but mainly because my reading pile has grown to such a size I'm very careful with adding anything to it these days, but give me an article or a documentary and I'd happily devour it. *g*

[luzula]

I did write a little bit about it in response to sanguinity's comment above, if you're interested. : )

[ysilme]

Oooh, great, thank you! *bookmarks for when the crazy is over*

[chestnut_pod]

I could not really suspend my disbelief that humans could fuck up Earth to such an extent that it would be a better alternative to move to Jupiter -- Hah, that's fair! For me, it justified itself by being Rule of Cool.

[luzula]

To be fair, it was cool! I'm sure I would probably accept similar things that don't touch so closely on areas that I'm closely engaged with...

[jesse_the_k]

I heard this described as Sherlock Holmes fanfic -- is that true? (A casual glance saw no characters with initials H or W.)

[luzula]

Possibly? But if so, it's at some remove. The Watson character has little in common with Watson that I could see. The Holmes character is a detective, but an officially employed one, and has a tendency to be emotionally distant. It's a second-chance f/f romance.

[scribe]

The two of us who both read the book and made it to bookclub also went, "well, this book was...fine," and mostly declined to bother discussing it, so you didn't miss much! :-P

(Also I definitely didn't realize the planet was supposed to be Jupiter, hahaha. Was that explicitly in there? I read the first half ages ago and the second half recently, so I may have forgotten some bits.)

[luzula]

Okay, glad to learn that "...fine, I guess?" was a common response! Sorry I missed the mårunda and general chatter though.

Maybe I just assumed it was Jupiter? Like, why would you go to Saturn or Uranus or Neptune instead (further away, less sunlight...). But logistical/technical/ecological issues was not the book's strong suit anyway, so perhaps they're in some other solar system altogether and there was FTL travel I didn't notice.

I love your DW

[jesse_the_k]

because today you introduced me to both

mycorrhizal relationships which are amazing.

and the Rule of Cool

Re: I love your DW

[luzula]

Hee, glad to provide! And combining the two, mycorrhiza is very cool IMO. : )