Vanessa’s research on urban tree connectivity was mentioned in New Scientist in the article, The Trees in our Cities are Dying — A sick microbiome may be to blame by James Dinneen.
“One researcher exploring this possibility is Bhatnagar’s colleague at Harvard University. After reading about ecologist of old-growth forests, she wondered if she could facilitate suchconnections among isolated city trees. In a greenhouse at the Harvard Forest researchstation in western Massachusetts, she and her team have set up simulated sidewalks inthe form of long wooden boxes, with soil conditions mimicking those in Boston. First,Harden plants white oak saplings at either end of each box, then, wearing latex gloves toavoid contamination, she adds a handful of extra soil collected from a stand of oaks atthe Harvard Forest to one of the trees. This inoculates its roots with an intact communityof fungi. Between the trees, she makes a “soil conduit” – a strip of loosened soil thatshould make it easier for the roots of both trees to spread.
Harden hopes to demonstrate that the mycorrhizae will colonise the first tree and spreadthrough the conduit to the second, with health benefits for both. If the treatment works,city trees separated from others might benefit from soil conduits cut through roads orsidewalks. By her estimate, New York City alone has around 300,000 such “lonely” trees.“We have people plopping down trees without understanding what they need,” she says.”