(Photo : Mali Maeder)
The Remarkable Discovery
When Suzanne Simard made her remarkable findings - that trees had the ability to communicate and cooperate via subterranean networks of fungi - the scientific initiation underreacted. Though her doctoral study was released in the Nature journal in 1997 - a coup for any researcher - the discovery that trees are more beneficent than competitive was discharged by many as if it were the misunderstanding of an anthropomorphizing hippy.
Presently, at 60-year-old, she is a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia and her research of over three decades as a "forest detective" is well-known worldwide. In her recent book titled Finding the Mother Tree, which is a scientific memoir as engrossing as any HBO drama series - she wants it known that her work has not a been brief experience: "I want people to be aware that what I've found has been about my entire life."