Roottori

Roottori is a fictional concept used in speculative fiction and worldbuilding to describe subterranean networks that connect plant roots and other organisms, enabling exchange of nutrients, water, signals, and, in some depictions, genetic material. The term is not standardized and appears in various works where a fictional ecosystem uses roottori to coordinate resource distribution and defense.

Origins and etymology vary by author. In many works, roottori are presented as part of an ancient or native system within the imagined world, while other authors simply coin the term as a descriptive compound of root and a flexible suffix. In these tales, roottori form a lattice beneath the soil that can span forests, farms, or urban green spaces.

Structure and function. Roottori networks are typically depicted as filamentous and scale-invariant, capable of growing as ecosystems expand. They may harvest photosynthates from one plant and share them with others, allow plants to sense stress across the network, and trigger coordinated responses such as defense against pathogens. Some narratives also attribute to roottori the ability to transfer small molecules or, less commonly, genetic material, for storytelling or plot purposes.

In culture and media. Roottori appear in novels, role-playing games, and strategy games as a background mechanism of ecosystem regulation or as a plot device for environmental balance. They are often described with a sense of wonder, sometimes accompanied by cautionary notes about ecological fragility and human interference.

Relation to real science. The concept loosely mirrors real-world mycorrhizal networks and rhizosphere communication, but roottori typically exaggerate capabilities for narrative effect and worldbuilding.