![]() “The spores find the stalks of plants, are inhaled into the lungs of animals,” Mr. What might happen if it adapts in such a way as to eliminate threats to itself, like loggers, and the outsiders who threaten both it and the native peoples who live in symbiosis with it? The first thing it can do is ensure that its spores are inhaled, so the brains of those infected start to network like the fungus, working toward a joint purpose with maximum efficiency. Is the fungus intelligent? Not exactly, but it is adaptive. It manages the whole forest, “culling and shaping” the inhabitants through the spores and enzymes it emits. Every time you tread on it, it sniffs your DNA. A gigantic network of nodes and tendrils, it forms the bloodstream of the whole ecosystem. ![]() It’s the fungus that underlies millions of acres of the Amazon rainforest. What is the largest living thing on Earth? Not the California redwood, says David Walton in “The Genius Plague” (Pyr, 384 pages, $14.95), nor the blue whale. ![]()
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