Proto-Ecosystem Readiness: 1 Mycorrhizal Networks: Underground Fields of Inclination

How fungal-plant symbioses enact distributed life through chemical signalling, perspectival alignment, and colony-scale potential.

Beneath the forest floor, a hidden web pulses with life: mycorrhizal fungi connect plant roots across species, facilitating nutrient exchange, information flow, and coordinated responses to environmental pressures. These networks provide a vivid example of readiness fields beyond the individual, showing how ability and inclination scale in a relationally structured system.

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1. Ability: Networked Potential Across Plants and Fungi

• The colony-scale ability emerges from the integrated fungal network:

  • Nutrient distribution: phosphorus, nitrogen, and water flow adaptively among connected plants.

  • Stress buffering: if one plant is shaded, diseased, or nutrient-limited, others can compensate via the fungal network.

  • Environmental sensing: fungi transmit chemical cues, enabling plants to anticipate threats or opportunities.

• Ability is distributed; no single plant or fungus contains the network’s potential.

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2. Inclination: Local Biases as Propagated Signals

• Each plant and fungal hypha interprets local chemical and physical cues:

  • Root proximity, nutrient gradients, or pathogen presence biases resource allocation.

  • Hyphae selectively strengthen or weaken connections, tilting network flows toward some plants.

• These inclinations are dynamic, creating a constantly shifting pattern of chemical and energetic prioritisation.

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3. Individuation: Perspectival Coupling Across Species

• Each organism is a perspectival locus, enacting readiness from its local vantage:

  • A stressed sapling may draw more nutrients through fungal intermediaries.

  • A healthy mature tree may subsidise younger plants, enhancing overall network coherence.

• Partial individuation:

  • Plants and fungi retain local autonomy.

  • Collective coordination emerges from alignment of multiple local enactments, producing an integrated network-scale identity.

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4. Conceptual Payoffs

• Explains ecosystem-level coordination without invoking central control.

• Reveals how cross-species inclinations guide resource flows and adaptive responses.

• Suggests experiments:

  • Manipulate nutrient availability or hyphal connectivity → observe shifts in network-level resource distribution.

  • Track signalling molecules to map inclination fields in situ.

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5. Closing Reflections

Mycorrhizal networks demonstrate the power of distributed readiness:

• Ability: emerges from fungal-plant integration, enabling adaptive resource management.

• Inclination: local cues bias allocation and growth, shaping the network dynamically.

• Individuation: each organism enacts readiness perspectivally, yet the network functions as a coherent whole.

Beneath the forest, life is a field of interpreted possibilities, flowing invisibly through fungal threads and plant roots, a proto-ecosystem in action.