Could Music be the Solution to Our Disappearing Forests?
Noise pollution is a major concern in our community from simply annoying neighbours to affecting our mood and sleep patterns. In the natural world, it is well known that loud noises caused by humans can affect wild animals’ hunting and foraging abilities. However, for mycelium, a type of fungi, certain noises might be beneficial. Researchers at Flinders University have discovered that music helps promote growth in fungi.
The rate at which Trichoderma harzianum produced spores following regular exposure to a sound at 8kHz was measured by the researchers to prove that ‘ecoacoustics’ can be a viable way of restoring ecosystems. The use of sounds has previously been helpful to measure soil health but it’s never previously been used as an active solution.
Fungi play a massive role within the forest ecosystem. Forest Ecology Professor Suzanne Simard at the University of British Columbia discovered the ‘Wood Wide Web’ which is a fungal network that shares resources such as carbon and deliver signals between plant species spanning acres of forest. Similar to the human nervous system, action potentials have been detected within certain species which even suggests the fungi can ‘talk’ to each other. Mycelium species have a symbiotic relationship with the trees as the fungi gain essential nutrients synthesised by the trees (e.g. sugar) which the fungi are unable to produce themselves. In return, forest plants receive access to a pool of difficult-to-find nutrients and can share chemical signals that warn of changes to their environment, for example. This mutual relationship is often threatened by deforestation, intensive farming, and pollution. The Wood Wide Web can take years to fully develop with studies showing that urban plants often don’t fair as well against disease and extreme weather events than their wilder counterparts who have access to a strong web network. Therefore, it is important to find effective ways to rejuvenate fungal species in ecosystems.
Before you start singing at the top your lungs in the Meanwood Valley, the study found that the most effective frequency for mycelium growth was above 5kHz. Ariana Grande, who is well known for her high pitch singing, can only reach frequencies of around 2600 Hz. The way that the researchers set up the equipment involved placing the samples into attenuation chambers that blocked out any outside noises and stimulated the sample dishes for 30 minutes a day with Bluetooth speakers. Future experiments, lead researcher J. Robinson suggests, should aim to discover whether specific frequencies can promote growth in desirable fungi like the ones in the Wood Wide Web and inhibit the growth of species that are responsible for diseases like pneumonia.
There may be some time in the future when nature walks won’t just be accompanied by the sound of bird song; forest speakers may begin to play accompanying tracks for the subterranean ecosystem. Improving the growth rate of the fungi will result in an accelerated restoration of natural habitats and improve the resilience of our natural spaces.
