The first-ever map of the entire underground network of fungi is being done to protect them from damage and improve their ability to absorb and store carbon dioxide.
The soil is a network of networks, which connect to plant roots and act as highways, exchanging carbon from plant roots for nutrients. Some fungi give 80% of the phosphorus they produce to their host plants.
trillions of miles of underground fungal networks are thought to exist around the world, but are rarely noticed. These fungi are important to the health of soils and soil fertility, but little is known about them.
The expansion of agriculture, pollution, water scarcity, and changes to the climate are thought to be threatening the mycorrhizal fungi.
The collection of 10,000 samples around the world will be part of a new project from the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks.
Jane Goodall said that an understanding of underground fungal networks is essential to the protection of the soil.
Scientists from the Netherlands, Canada, the US, France, Germany, and the University of Manchester are part of the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks.
The first collections will take place next year in Argentina, and will take about 18 months to create maps of potential underground mycorrhizal fungi. The scientists hope to use the maps to identify the most urgent threats to the underground ecosystems and to work with local conservatoires to create preservation corridors.
This is believed to be the first major effort to map an underground environment in this way. Climate science has focused on above-ground ecosystems, and although we know that fungi are essential for soil structure and fertility, and the global carbon cycle, as ecosystems with thriving mycorrhizal fungi networks have been shown to store eight times as much carbon as ecosystems without such networks.
Mark Tercek is a member of the governing body of the SPUN. If trees are the lungs of the planet, then the networks of gnats are thecirculatory systems. The networks are largely unexplored.
Mycorrhizal fungi create tough organic compounds that provide structure to the soil, and store carbon in their necromass, the networks that are no longer active, but remain woven into the soil.
Scientists warn that modern industrial agriculture adds a lot of chemical fertiliser which affects the dynamics of exchange between plants and fungi. Crops need more chemical inputs and are more vulnerable to pests and diseases if there is no thriving fungal networks. The physical integrity of the networks is damaged by mechanical plowing.
Some combinations of fungi can enhance productivity more than others, so guarding them is important.
The Canadian tundra, the Mexican plateau, high altitudes in South America, the western Sahara, Israel's Negev desert, and the grassland and high plains of Tibet have been identified by the scientists.
The project is being funded by Jeremy Grantham, a billionaire financier and funder of climate research. Billions of tons of carbon dioxide are released from plants to the air. Carbon sinks are not understood. In working to map and harness this threatened but vital resource for life on earth, SPUN is leading a new chapter in global conservativism.
