b. 1960 · A portrait
A Canadian forest ecologist traced carbon moving between Douglas fir trees linked underground by fungal threads, and argued large, well-connected 'mother trees' pass resources toward younger ones. The generalization is now contested.
The line above is how her claims were received — by the scientists whose job was to doubt them. It rises as a claim is tested and accepted, and the room brightens with it. It is not a verdict on truth: some accepted ideas are later overturned, and some rejected ones come back. A hollow point is a claim still open.
Using radioactive and stable carbon isotopes, she showed carbon moving both ways between paper birch and Douglas fir seedlings linked by shared fungal networks in British Columbia soil, published on the cover of Nature and later nicknamed the 'wood-wide web.'
In her book Finding the Mother Tree she generalized further: that large, older, well-connected trees act as hubs that pass resources toward younger, related trees across a forest's fungal network, calling them 'mother trees.'
Ecologists Justine Karst, Melanie Jones and Jason Hoeksema reviewed the published field studies in Nature Ecology & Evolution and found only a few forest types actually tested, mixed results on whether linked seedlings benefit, and no peer-reviewed evidence for deliberate mother-tree sharing.
The 1997 carbon-transfer finding stands; the review confirmed resources do move between trees through fungal networks in tested cases. The 'mother tree' generalization remains contested, and she continues running a long-term, multi-site field project testing how these networks affect forest recovery.