Join the Marion Natural History Museum on Friday, August 20, at the Marion Music Hall from 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm for “How Trees Communicate – Exploring the underground network of trees” with Valentina Lagomarsino, PhD student, Biological Biomedical Sciences program at Harvard University.
Trees are considered to be the oldest living organisms on the planet. Over centuries, they have been resilient to changes in their environment due to their symbiotic relationship to fungi and other microbes.
When scientists first studied the structure of nerve cells that comprise the human brain, they noted their strong resemblance to trees. In fact, dendrites, the term to describe projections from a nerve cell, comes from the Greek word Dendron, for “tree.”
The comparison may have been more apt than originally realized. Ccientists are starting to uncover that trees have their own sort of nervous system that is capable of facilitating tree communication, memory, and learning.
Let’s discuss how trees communicate and the invisible microbes that keep our ecosystems in harmony. Donation: $8 members, $10 non-members. Registration in advance is recommended. To register, please go to the museum’s website at www.marionmuseum.org.