Overview
- Researchers at Tohoku University recorded electrical activity across 37 ectomycorrhizal mushrooms in a Japanese oak forest using electrodes over 3.5 days.
- Applying urine to the soil generally reduced the measured flow of electrical information between the mushrooms.
- Water changed signaling in a context-specific way, boosting flow when added to one mushroom but reducing it when spread more widely.
- Signal responses also shifted with physical distance between mushrooms and with their genetic relatedness.
- The team published the study in Scientific Reports and plans follow-up work to match specific signal patterns to defined fungal functions.