Soru

Passage A
For decades, forestry viewed trees as solitary competitors vying for light and soil nutrients. However, recent research into mycorrhizal networks—underground webs of fungal mycelia connecting plant roots—reveals a collaborative forest ecosystem. Through these networks, older "mother trees" actively allocate carbon and nutrients to younger seedlings, particularly their own kin, significantly increasing seedling survival rates. Furthermore, when under insect attack, trees transmit biochemical warning signals through the mycelial pathways, prompting neighboring trees to preemptively synthesize chemical defenses. This network acts as a cooperative conduit, suggesting that forest health is maintained not through individual competition, but through a highly coordinated, mutualistic system of resource sharing and signaling.

Passage B
While the concept of a cooperative "wood wide web" has captured the public imagination, a critical evaluation of the evidence suggests caution. Many studies claiming tree-to-tree communication rely on laboratory settings that fail to replicate complex forest dynamics. In field observations, the direction and quantity of carbon transfer through fungal networks are notoriously difficult to track; what is often characterized as altruistic sharing is more likely a passive physical flow along source-sink gradients, or even fungal organisms exploiting host plants for their own energetic needs. Moreover, evolutionary biology dictates that natural selection operates on individuals, not groups. Framing mycorrhizal networks as networks of mutual aid overlooks the primary evolutionary driver: competition among individual trees and the fungi themselves.

Based on the passages, which of the following statements best describes a fundamental disagreement between the author of Passage A and the author of Passage B regarding the nature of mycorrhizal networks?