Today’s guest says you can tell a lot about a tree by the company it keeps – from unseen microbes to fungi, countless insects and other arthropods, to vertebrates like birds, squirrels, and even porcupines. From soil life around their roots to the action up in their canopies, trees are swarming with life, and their diverse community of companions is our topic.





Dr. James Nardi is a research scientist in the School of Integrative Biology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and the author and illustrator of several previous books. His latest is “The Hidden Company That Trees Keep: Life From Treetops to Root Tips,” and I am happy he’s joined me to talk about it.