Could fungus play a role in carbon storage and climate change?
Tiny fungi that live in the roots of plants could keep 70 percent more carbon stored in the soil, a University of Austin Texas news release reported. Plants remove carbon from the atmosphere during photosynthesis in the form of carbon dioxide. When the plant dies and decays that carbon is released into the soil. "Soil-dwelling microbes" that eat the dead plant matter release the carbon back into the air.
"Natural fluxes of carbon between the land and atmosphere are enormous and play a crucial role in regulating the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and, in turn, Earth's climate," Colin Averill, lead author on the study and graduate student in the College of Natural Sciences at UT Austin, said in the news release. "This analysis clearly establishes that the different types of symbiotic fungi that colonize plant roots exert major control on the global carbon cycle, which has not been fully appreciated or demonstrated until now."
"This research is not only relevant to models and predictions of future concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases, but also challenges the core foundation in modern biogeochemistry that climate exerts major control over soil carbon pools," Adrien Finzi, co-investigator and professor of biology at Boston University added.
Understanding how carbon cycles through the air and soil could help researchers make predictions about the fate of the climate.
Nitrogen is an essential element of life and mycorrhizal fungi help plants gain more of the nutrient from the soil. Recent studies have shown these fungi compete with the soil-dwelling organisms for this valuable nitrogen; the competition could slow down soil composition.
The two types of symbiotic fungi include ericoid mycorrhizal (EEM) fungi and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi. The EEM fungi generate nitrogen-degrading enzymes that allow them to harvest more nitrogen from the soil than the AM strain is able to.
A recent analysis suggests that plants that team up with EEM fungi "contain 70 percent more carbon per unit of nitrogen" than those that are paired with AM fungi.
The EEM fungi's soil-preserving enzyme reduces the amount of carbon that is released back into the atmosphere.
"This study is showing that trees and decomposers are really connected via these mycorrhizal fungi, and you can't make accurate predictions about future carbon cycling without thinking about how the two groups interact. We need to think of these systems holistically," Averill said.
