Healthy fungal networks help trees and plants grow, making them key to successful reforestation. The only problem? Almost nothing is known about this subterranean ecology
E
ven in midsummer, the ancient hazelwoods on the Hebridean island of Seil are cool and quiet. Countless slanted stems of hazel support a thick canopy, which blots out the sun and blankets everything below in a sort of “fairytale darkness”, says Bethan Manley, a biologist at the Wellcome Sanger Institute.
Moss and lichen coat branches threaded with honeysuckle, forming a great dome above you, adds David Satori, a researcher at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
This rich forest, on Scotland’s Hebridean islands, is a remnant of one of Britain’s oldest woodland environments. When the last ice age ended, the mile-thick glacier that had buried northern Europe melted away and hazelnuts sprouted across the rock left behind.
