Scientists have developed a method that uses robotics to track the links between plants and the symbiotic or mycorrhizal fungi that grow alongside of them; these physical links move supplies like carbon and nutrients, generating a complex network that is related to the planet's environment and atmosphere. In a new study reported in Nature, researchers used an imaging robot to monitor hundreds of thousands of fungal highways and the traffic moving on them. Now we know more about how every year, fungi gather about 13 billion tons of carbon dioxide and sequester it into underground networks.
The carbon dioxide that these fungi collect can be equivalent to about one-third of energy emissions. An estimated 80% of Earth's plants live in symbiosis with mycorrhizal fungi. The fungi exchange phosphorus and nitrogen for carbon from plants.
Researchers wanted to know more about these exchange networks. The imaging robot showed that two-way traffic runs on these highways, which may vary in speed and width as required.
“We’ve been mapping the decentralized decision-making processes of mycorrhizal fungal networks, exposing a hyper-efficient blueprint for an underground supply chain,” explained co-corresponding study author Dr. Toby Kiers of Vrije Universiteit, among other appointments. People might use computers to create efficient supply chains. But mycorrhizal fungi have been finding solutions to such problems for over 450 million years. "This is the kind of research that keeps you up at night because these fungi are such important underground circulatory systems for nutrients and carbon,” added Kiers.
“We discovered that these fungi are constantly adapting their trade routes, adding loops to shorten paths so they could efficiently deliver nutrients to plant roots” said co-corresponding study author Dr. Thomas Shimizu of the physics institute AMOLF.
Since carbon uses fungi to move into soils around the world, we can now start to learn more about what triggers the movement of increasing amounts of carbon underground, said Kiers.
Sources: SPUN (Society for the Protection of Underground Networks), Nature