News Summary

• Toby Kiers studied a type of fungi known as mycorrhizae that formed associations with trees.
• The fungi gave the plants phosphorus and nitrogen in exchange for sugars and fats that plants made from carbon in the air.
• This led Kiers to the defining question of her career: Were plants and fungi canny economic actors?
• Her goal is not to figure out whether fungi can trade and make economic decisions as well as us brainy humans.
• Instead, she suspects that by some measures fungi are better at economics than us.