{"id":741,"date":"2023-03-09T10:42:02","date_gmt":"2023-03-09T16:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nassaubaymusiclessons.com\/?p=741"},"modified":"2023-03-09T10:42:02","modified_gmt":"2023-03-09T16:42:02","slug":"nature-is-always-listening-the-science-of-mushrooms-music-and-how-sound-waves-stimulate-mycelial-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nassaubaymusiclessons.com\/?p=741","title":{"rendered":"Nature Is Always Listening: The Science of Mushrooms, Music, and How Sound Waves Stimulate Mycelial Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

What playing music has to do with the happiness of the forest.<\/h2>\n

By Maria Popova<\/h3>\n
\n

\"Nature<\/a><\/p>\n

Fungi are the evolutionary cardinals of the Earth \u2014 the first to conquer it and the last to inherit it, composing the living substratum beneath every forest and every field and every backyard ecosystem. Each cubic inch of mycelium compresses eight miles of fine filaments folded unto themselves \u2014 the original superstrings of this terrestrial universe. Wildly unlike us, they are inseparable from our creaturely inheritance. Since the dawn of our adolescent species, they have been touching our cuisine and our consciousness in ever-evolving ways, the underlying mystery of which we are only just beginning<\/a> to unravel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Art by Arthur Rackham from Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens<\/em><\/a>. (Available as a print<\/a> and as stationery cards<\/a>.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the early 2000s, a series of groundbreaking studies began revealing yet another facet of that mystery \u2014 the way mushrooms respond to sound, despite having no auditory organs. One [PDF<\/a>] found that high-frequency sounds inhibit spore generation and mycelial growth. Another [PDF<\/a>] affirmed the correlation from the other side, finding that low-frequency sound waves stimulate mycelial growth.<\/p>\n

The aptitudes and abilities of every organism \u2014 ours included \u2014 are puppeteered by evolutionary adaptation. This means the curious relationship between sound vibration and mycelial growth must confer some substantive evolutionary advantage upon mushrooms, honed over the eons.<\/p>\n

Master-mycologist Paul Stamets, author of the millennial bible Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World<\/em><\/a> (public library<\/em><\/a>), set out to solve the enigma.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Amanita muscaria<\/em> from \u201cAtlas des Champignons Comestibles et V\u00e9n\u00e9neux,\u201d 1891. (Available as a print<\/a> and as stationery cards<\/a>, benefitting The Nature Conservancy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In an episode<\/a> of musician Matt Whyte\u2019s altogether wonderful podcast Sing for Science<\/em><\/a> podcast, Stamets offers a possible \u2014 and deliciously plausible \u2014 hypothesis.<\/p>\n

In that peculiar and recurring way indigenous wisdom has of anticipating the discoveries of science, the folkloric traditions of many first nations across Europe, North America, Japan, and Russia hold that lightning strikes mushrooms more readily than other organisms. Stamets observes that we now know this to be true in measurable ways that contour a measurable evolutionary advantage \u2014 the 50,000 volts of electricity a log incurs when struck by lightning greatly stimulates the yield of the shiitake mushrooms growing on it.<\/p>\n

This is where Stamets\u2019s deduction gets interesting: Before lightning strikes, thunder sounds \u2014 a rolling tide of low-frequency waves unspooling from the horizon. Having had hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary training and triumph by harnessing the elements and the environment, mushrooms would want something to awaken them to the impending rain event in order to get ready to absorb the water and electricity so beneficial to their propagation. Low-frequency sound waves, under this hypothesis, act as a warning bell \u2014 a mycelial clarion call for duty.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Satan\u2019s bolete (Rubroboletus satanas<\/em>) from Atlas des Champignons Comestibles et V\u00e9n\u00e9neux,<\/em> 1891. (Available as a print<\/a> and as stationery cards<\/a>, benefitting The Nature Conservancy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stamets reflects on the deeper undertones of this interdependence:<\/p>\n

Nature is always listening via mycelium. Mycelium is like strings on a violin, strings on a piano, strings on a guitar \u2014 these are filaments that are sensitive to vibrations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sensing these low-frequency sound waves, the mycelium begins \u201cresponding with joyous, bountiful nutrients\u201d \u2014 compounds that nourish not just the fruiting body of the mushroom above, but the entire forest ecosystem \u2014 which, as we now know<\/a> (thanks to pioneering forester Suzanne Simard, who appeared in the inaugural episode<\/a> of Sing for Science<\/em>), is undergirded by a complex mycelial communication network carrying simple electrical and chemical signals between trees and other plants. The healthier the mycelium, the happier the canopy, and the more plentiful the flowers and berries beneath it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Chanterelles (Cantharellus cibarius<\/em>) from Atlas des Champignons Comestibles et V\u00e9n\u00e9neux,<\/em> 1891. (Available as a print<\/a> and as stationery cards<\/a>, benefitting The Nature Conservancy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Returning to the consanguinity between science and music the show celebrates, Stamets reflects:<\/p>\n

People coming together and celebrating with music: nature is responding with the mycelial networks being invigorated and inducing upchannel nutrients benefitting the commons.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What an astonishing world we live in \u2014 a world in which, as the poetic naturalist John Muir observed epochs before our science, \u201cwhen we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Complement with cellist Zo\u00eb Keating reading and reflecting on Sylvia Plath\u2019s poem \u201cMushrooms\u201d<\/a> from The Universe in Verse<\/em><\/a> \u2014 a kindred celebration of science through the lens of poetry, with a side of music \u2014 then revisit Peter Rabbit<\/em> creator Beatrix Potter\u2019s influential illustrated studies of mushrooms<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What playing music has to do with the happiness of the forest. By Maria Popova Fungi are the evolutionary cardinals of the Earth \u2014 the first to conquer it and the last to inherit it, composing the living substratum beneath every forest and every field and every backyard ecosystem. Each cubic inch of mycelium compresses … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Nature Is Always Listening: The Science of Mushrooms, Music, and How Sound Waves Stimulate Mycelial Growth”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pafaYH-bX","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nassaubaymusiclessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nassaubaymusiclessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nassaubaymusiclessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nassaubaymusiclessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nassaubaymusiclessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nassaubaymusiclessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":742,"href":"https:\/\/nassaubaymusiclessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions\/742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nassaubaymusiclessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nassaubaymusiclessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nassaubaymusiclessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}