How Do Fungi Keep the Planet Healthy?
Evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers explains how fungal networks in soil trade nutrients with plants, help keep carbon underground, and strike bargains without having a brain. The post How Do Fungi Keep the Planet Healthy? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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People may think of soil as just dirt, but it is anything but inert. Beneath your feet, a vast network of mycorrhizal fungi is hard at work, trading minerals with plant roots. This trading system helps enrich the soil, and it sequesters 13 billion tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide each year — roughly equivalent to one-third of the world’s fossil-fuel emissions. Scientists know that these fungi form partnerships with 80% of all plant species on Earth, a relationship that evolved some 450 million years ago. What they have not understood is how organisms with no brain or central nervous system…
