🌲 Forest Cross-Section Lab: Canopy Light, Mycorrhizal Carbon Network, Deer Browsing and Soil Nitrogen

A slice through a mixed oak and spruce forest. Leaves share the light (Beer-Lambert), fungi trade soil nitrogen for sugar and link the trees, deer eat the understory and the seedlings, and litter feeds the soil. Change sunlight, rain, nitrogen, fungal sharing or hunting and watch nine plants, the herd and the soil respond over decades, with a carbon budget that closes exactly.