Around 90% of land plants do not feed their roots alone: they hire a fungal network to fetch water and phosphorus and pay it back in photosynthetic sugar. Every such partnership sorts by sign — mutualism (+/+), commensalism (+/0) and parasitism (+/−) — and the degree of dependency says which partner is in trouble if the link breaks. Once the two are pulled apart the difference shows at once: an anemone without its clownfish or a tree without its fungus weakens, whereas a tick without a host simply dies.
Around 90% of land plants do not feed their roots alone: they hire a fungal network to fetch water and phosphorus and pay it back in photosynthetic sugar. Every such partnership sorts by sign — mutualism (+/+), commensalism (+/0) and parasitism (+/−) — and the degree of dependency says which partner is in trouble if the link breaks. Once the two are pulled apart the difference shows at once: an anemone without its clownfish or a tree without its fungus weakens, whereas a tick without a host simply dies.
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