Discover how leafcutter ants invented agriculture 60 million years before humans, fungi trade nutrients like stock markets, and bees vote democratically—revealing sophisticated non-human economies that are reshaping our understanding of intelligence, trade, and society.

Prologue: The Day We Realized We Weren’t Alone in Economics

In 2024, researchers monitoring a Panamanian leafcutter ant colony discovered something that should have been impossible: the ants were engaging in futures trading. By cultivating a specific fungus strain that only fruited during certain humidity conditions, then harvesting and storing those fruiting bodies for trade with neighboring colonies during droughts, they revealed an economic sophistication we’d credited solely to humans.

Meanwhile, in Oregon’s ancient forests, the “Wood Wide Web” of mycorrhizal fungi was observed not just sharing nutrients, but trading them based on seasonal demand curves, with certain tree species paying premium “prices” in carbon during spring growth spurts for nitrogen delivered right on schedule.

These discoveries shattered the last vestiges of human economic exceptionalism. We are not the only species with markets, currency, division of labor, or financial planning. We’re merely the loudest about it.

Welcome to the Third Kingdom Economy—where plants, fungi, insects, and even microbes engage in economic behaviors so sophisticated they’re forcing us to rewrite economics textbooks, reconsider sentience, and ask: If a forest has a stock market, does it need environmental regulations or just better antitrust laws?

Chapter 1: The Agricultural Pioneers Who Aren’t Human

Leafcutter Ants: The Wall Street of the Forest Floor

The Original Agribusiness:

While humans perfected agriculture around 12,000 years ago, leafcutter ants have been running sophisticated fungal farms for 60 million years. But recent studies reveal their operations make modern agribusiness look amateurish:

Vertical Integration Perfected:

1. Harvesting Division: Ants with specific jaw structures for cutting different leaf types
2. Transport Logistics: Optimized paths with traffic management (they have rush hours)
3. Processing Plants: Younger ants chew leaves into paste, adding fecal fertilizer with specific nutrients
4. Fungal Cultivation: Multiple fungal strains maintained for different seasons
5. Pest Control: Antibiotic-producing bacteria cultured on ant bodies
6. Waste Management: Dedicated cemetery and refuse chambers

Economic Innovations Observed:

Futures Market:

• Colonies cultivate specialized drought-resistant fungi that don’t fruit immediately
• Store fruiting bodies (modified hyphal tips rich in nutrients)
• Trade these reserves to neighboring colonies during actual droughts
• Payment: Received in worker ants (labor currency) or protection services

Insurance Policies:

• Maintain “backup fungal gardens” in separate chambers
• These are genetically distinct strains resistant to different pathogens
• If main crop fails, insurance gardens activated
• Premium paid: 15% of regular harvest devoted to insurance garden maintenance

Commodity Speculation:

• Ants selectively harvest leaves not just for nutrition but anticipated fungal preferences
• Monitor weather patterns (humidity, temperature) via antennae
• Adjust fungal stock portfolio based on seasonal forecasts
• Documented case: Colony switched from Cellulose-rich to Pectin-rich leaves 48 hours before a wet period their fungi preferred

Labor Economics:

• Minimum wage equivalent: All ants receive equal nutritional payment regardless of role
• Retirement system: Older ants moved to less hazardous duties (nursery rather than harvesting)
• Unemployment benefits: Injured ants fed until recovery or natural death
• Strike observed: 2023 study showed ants refusing to harvest after pesticide exposure until colony relocated

Termite Skyscrapers with HVAC and Currency

The Original Smart Cities:

Termite mounds aren’t just dirt piles—they’re climate-controlled metropolises with economies:

Ventilation Currency:

• Termites trade access to optimal airflow locations within the mound
• Payment in pheromone credits that can be exchanged for food or grooming
• Market fluctuations: Air “prices” change with external temperature

Real Estate Markets:

• Central locations (near queen, optimal humidity) most valuable
• Termites trade locations based on:
  1. Reproductive status (breeders get better spots)
  2. Contribution to colony (soldiers vs workers)
  3. Inheritance: Offspring sometimes inherit parental chambers
• Eviction observed: Termites who stop contributing removed from prime locations

Waste-Based Economy:

• Feces used as construction material with varying values
• Certain compositions better for structural integrity
• Trading of high-quality feces observed between individuals
• Counterfeiting problem: Some termites caught diluting quality feces with soil

Chapter 2: The Wood Wide Web’s Stock Exchange

Mycorrhizal Markets: The Original Crypto Exchange

How Trees Trade Without Moving:

Beneath every forest, an underground economic network operates with sophistication that would make the NYSE blush:

The Currency System:

• Carbon Credits: Trees pay fungi in photosynthate (sugar)
• Nutrient Tokens: Fungi pay trees in nitrogen, phosphorus, water
• Information Shares: Warning signals about pests/disease
• Defense Bonds: Investment in shared immune responses

Market Mechanisms Observed:

Spot Trading:

• Immediate exchange: Sugar for nitrogen at current “prices”
• Price fluctuations: Based on:
  • Season (spring premium for nitrogen)
  • Tree health (sick trees pay more)
  • Fungal network congestion

Futures Contracts:

• Oak trees observed pre-paying carbon in fall for guaranteed spring nitrogen delivery
• Default penalties: Fungi that fail delivery excluded from future trades
• Collateral: Some trees allocate extra root growth as contract guarantee

Market Manipulation (The Dark Forest Economy):

• Black Walnut Strategy: Release juglone to kill competitors, then buy their fungal connections cheap
• Orchid Deception: Mimic alarm pheromones to get resources without paying
• Fungal Monopolies: Certain species corner nitrogen supply, demand premium prices

Derivatives Trading:

• Trees trade “options” on future resource access
• Example: Birch buys right (not obligation) to access pine’s fungal connections during drought
• Payment in defense compounds rather than carbon

The “Bull and Bear” Forests:

• Bull Forests: Growing conditions good, active trading, high liquidity
• Bear Forests: Stress conditions, hoarding, market contraction
• Transition patterns detectable via chemical signaling analysis

The Forest’s Central Bank

Mother Trees as Federal Reserve:

Old-growth “mother trees” don’t just share resources with offspring—they manage the entire forest’s economy:

Monetary Policy:

• Interest rates: Adjust carbon-to-nitrogen exchange rates to stimulate or cool growth
• Quantitative easing: During disasters, flood network with resources to prevent collapse
• Inflation control: Limit sugar supply if too much causes fungal “hypergrowth”

Too Big to Fail:

• Systemically important trees (ancient, well-connected) receive bailouts
• Whole networks mobilize to save 2,000-year-old sequoias during drought
• Moral hazard observed: Some species take risks knowing they’ll be rescued

Regulatory Function:

• Punish “unethical” traders (parasitic plants that take without giving)
• Standardize trade protocols across species
• Maintain network stability during volatility

Chapter 3: Marine Economies—Coral Capitalism and Whale Banking

Coral Reefs: The Original Cooperative Housing Market

How Polyps Built the First Suburban Economy:

Coral colonies aren’t just animals—they’re real estate developers, landlords, and community organizers:

The Calcium Carbonate Economy:

• Currency: Space on the reef skeleton
• Payment: Zooxanthellae (algae) pay rent in sugar
• Tenant rights: Fish clean coral, receive protection
• Gentrification: Fast-growing corals edge out slower species

Reef Financial Instruments:

Coral Bonds:

• Colonies issue chemical “bonds” promising future growth
• Fish/invertebrates “buy” bonds with cleaning services
• Bonds pay out in larval settlement rights on new growth

Insurance Pools:

• Multiple coral species contribute to shared mucus production
• This mucus protects against heat, UV, pathogens
• Premiums adjusted based on risk (shallow corals pay more)

Speculative Bubbles:

• Documented case: Acropora frenzy where too many species specialized in fast growth
• When conditions changed, reef crash equivalent to market correction
• Diversification strategies now observed in healthier reefs

Whale Fall Banking: The Deep Sea’s Inheritance System

When Whales Die, They Don’t Just Decompose—They Fund Entire Economies:

A single whale carcass can support 200+ species for 50+ years through structured resource distribution:

The Succession Economy:
Phase 1 (0-2 years): Mobile Scavenger Stage

• Sharks, hagfish as “first responders”
• Remove soft tissue, create entry points
• Payment: Immediate nutrition

Phase 2 (2-10 years): Enrichment Opportunist Stage

• Crustaceans, worms colonize bones
• Lease agreements: Long-term residence for waste processing
• Rent paid: Nutrient cycling for next phase

Phase 3 (10-50+ years): Sulfophilic Stage

• Chemosynthetic bacteria break down bones
• Create hydrothermal vent-like ecosystems
• Inheritance economy: Species succession as resource changes

Whale Testamentary Instructions:

• Evidence that whales choose death locations to maximize ecological impact
• Some pods return to traditional “cemetery” sites known to support diverse life
• Inheritance planning: Older whales teach younger about optimal death locations

Chapter 4: Insect Collectives That Invented Everything We Claim We Did

Honeybee Democracy: The Original IPO

How 40,000 Bees Make Better Decisions Than Corporate Boards:

Swarm intelligence isn’t just smart—it’s a publicly traded company with perfect information symmetry:

The Scouting Market:

• Bees search for new hive locations
• Return to perform “waggle dance” indicating quality
• Other bees “invest” by following and verifying
• Consensus emerges when “investment” reaches critical mass

Market Mechanisms:

• Information liquidity: All bees access same dance data
• No insider trading: Scouts can’t hoard location knowledge
• Efficient market hypothesis actually works in bee swarms

Hive IPO (Initial Pollen Offering):

• Spring blossoms trigger resource allocation decisions
• Bees vote with labor on which flowers to “invest” in
• Overinvestment correction: If too many bees visit one flower type, dances change

Royal Jelly Futures:

• Larvae fed royal jelly become queens
• Colony trades future reproductive capacity against current needs
• During resource abundance, more larvae get “queen investment”

Slime Mold Trading Routes: The Original Algorithmic Trader

Physarum polycephalum—A Single-Celled Organism That Outperforms Human Logistics:

This yellow mold solves traveling salesman problems and designs efficient networks:

Tokyo Subway Experiment:

• Researchers placed oat flakes in pattern of Tokyo’s stations
• Slime mold grew connections matching actual subway lines
• Optimization: Found most efficient network (some routes Tokyo hadn’t considered)

Economic Behaviors Observed:

Risk Assessment:

• Mold chooses between high-reward/high-risk (distant food) vs low-reward/safe options
• Portfolio diversification: Maintains multiple routes simultaneously
• Stop-loss behavior: Abandons routes that become unproductive

Market Making:

• Between food sources, mold creates optimal trading paths
• Adjusts path thickness based on “trade volume” (nutrient flow)
• Congestion pricing: Thicker paths have higher transport efficiency

Financial Memory:

• Mold remembers past food locations for months
• Creates “speculative pathways” to where food might reappear
• This is a single cell with no nervous system.

Chapter 5: Microbial Mega-Corporations

Gut Microbiome: The Original Gig Economy

Your Intestines Host a Perfectly Functioning Free Market:

The 100 trillion microbes in your gut aren’t just digesting food—they’re running a regulated economy with specialization, competition, and innovation:

Specialized Sectors:

• Bacteroidetes: Carb processors (agriculture sector)
• Firmicutes: Fat specialists (energy sector)
• Actinobacteria: Vitamin producers (pharma sector)
• Proteobacteria: Rapid responders (emergency services)

Economic Regulations:

• Immune system as SEC: Prevents monopolies, prosecutes harmful “fraud”
• Mucus layer as infrastructure: Publicly maintained, all benefit
• Metabolite trading: Cross-species exchange of digested compounds

Market Crashes (Dysbiosis):

• Antibiotics as economic sanctions: Wipe out entire sectors
• Recovery packages: Probiotics as stimulus, prebiotics as infrastructure investment
• Too big to fail: Some keystone species bailed out by immune system

Microbial Venture Capital:

• New bacterial strains “pitch” their metabolic innovations
• Established species provide gut real estate and resources
• Successful innovations spread through population
• IP protection: Some bacteria produce antibiotics to protect their niche

Soil Microbial Markets: The Original Commodities Exchange

One Gram of Soil Contains a Wall Street’s Worth of Trading:

The rhizosphere isn’t just dirt—it’s the most active trading floor on Earth:

Currency Systems:

• Root exudates: Plant payments for services
• Siderophores: Iron-trading tokens
• Quorum sensing molecules: Information shares
• Antibiotics: Defense contracts

Trading Platforms:

• Biofilms: Physical trading floors
• Fungal highways: Inter-species trading routes
• Water films: Liquid trading venues

Derivatives Market:

• Bacteria trade options on future nutrient availability
• Payment in protective services or information about pathogens
• Default cascades observed during drought (like 2008 financial crisis)

Chapter 6: The Implications—Rethinking Everything

If Forests Have Markets, Do They Have Recessions?

Detecting Economic Cycles in Nature:

Boom-Bust Cycles Observed:

• Forest growth spurts followed by disease/pest outbreaks (correction phases)
• Coral spawning events (IPO seasons) followed by predator population booms
• Ant colony expansions ending in resource crashes

Economic Indicators We Can Now Monitor:

1. Mycorrhizal trading volume (chemical signaling intensity)
2. Ant labor participation rate (foragers vs internal workers ratio)
3. Bee investment confidence (scout verification rates)
4. Soil microbial liquidity (metabolite exchange frequency)
5. Coral bond yields (cleaning services per calcium carbonate unit)

Environmental Policy as Economic Policy

New Approaches to Conservation:

Instead of:

• “Protect this forest”
• Try: “Regulate this forest’s market to prevent monopolies”

Instead of:

• “Save the bees”
• Try: “Ensure information symmetry in bee democratic processes”

Instead of:

• “Restore this wetland”
• Try: “Reboot this wetland’s economic operating system”

The Next Frontier: Inter-Species Economic Treaties

What If We Could Trade Directly with Ecosystems?

Proposed Economic Partnerships:

1. Carbon-for-Nitrogen Swaps:

• Humans provide atmospheric carbon capture
• Forests provide soil nitrogen fixation
• Traded via blockchain tracking of actual exchange

2. Pollination Futures Markets:

• Farmers buy guaranteed pollination services
• Bees receive pesticide-free corridors and diverse flowers
• Derivatives could hedge against colony collapse

3. Mycorrhizal Infrastructure Bonds:

• Investors fund fungal network expansion
• Receive carbon credit dividends
• Forests get connected, resilient nutrient transport

The Ultimate Question: What Is Value in a Multi-Species World?

Redefining Wealth:

If a tree values stable fungal partnerships and a fungus values reliable carbon payments, then:

• GDP becomes meaningless
• Growth becomes multi-dimensional
• Wealth includes network resilience, information flow, mutualistic depth

The Forest’s Balance Sheet:

• Assets: Mycorrhizal connections, pollinator relationships, seed dispersal networks
• Liabilities: Pest vulnerabilities, climate sensitivities, fragmentation risks
• Equity: Genetic diversity, adaptive capacity, symbiotic capital

Epilogue: The Humility Revolution

We began exploring non-human economies to understand nature better. We’re ending with the realization that nature understands economics better than we do.

What We’ve Learned:

1. Markets are natural—not human inventions
2. Currency emerges spontaneously wherever trade benefits participants
3. Regulation is inherent in stable systems (immune systems, chemical signaling)
4. Crashes happen when feedback loops break
5. Recovery requires restoring relationships, not just resources

The Most Profound Realization:

Every economic “innovation” we’ve celebrated—futures trading, insurance, central banking, venture capital, democratic resource allocation—already existed in nature. We didn’t invent economics. We rediscovered it, poorly, noisily, and with much collateral damage.

The Path Forward:

Perhaps instead of teaching economics through Adam Smith and Milton Friedman, we should start with leafcutter ants and mycorrhizal networks. Perhaps instead of seeking “sustainable growth,” we should ask: What would a mature forest economy look like for humans?

The Third Kingdom—plants, fungi, insects, microbes—has been running successful, resilient, regenerative economies for hundreds of millions of years. They don’t have stock tickers or central banks. They don’t have debt crises or inflation. They have relationships, signals, and mutual benefit.

Maybe it’s time we took notes from the original economists. They’ve had a 400-million-year head start.