NEW SCIENTIST: Brainless fungi trade resources with plants like a stock market

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David Johnson, a soil ecologist at the University of Manchester, UK, was not surprised that the fungi have this ability. “The fungus is not merely a passive passenger in this symbiosis,” he says. “It may be dependent on the plant but it is there for its own benefit, and it has evolved mechanisms to look after itself, which include the ability to move resources around in response to environmental conditions.”