essential to reaching net zero, new study reveals
Researchers are now calling for fungi to be considered more heavily in conservation and biodiversity policies, and are investigating whether we can increase how much carbon the soil underneath us can hold

Date:
June 5, 2023
Source:
University of Sheffield
Summary:
Mycorrhizal fungi are responsible for holding up to 36 per cent
of yearly global fossil fuel emissions below ground -- more than
China emits each year.


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FULL STORY ========================================================================== Fungi stores a third of carbon from fossil fuel emissions and could be essential to reaching net zero, new study reveals.

* Mycorrhizal fungi are responsible for holding up to 36 per cent
of yearly
global fossil fuel emissions below ground - more than China emits
each year
* The fungi make up a vast underground network all over the planet
underneath grasslands and forests, as well as roads, gardens,
and houses on every continent on Earth
* It is not only crucial to storing carbon and keeping the planet
cooler,
but are also essential to global biodiversity
* Researchers are now calling for fungi to be considered more
heavily in
conservation and biodiversity policies, and are investigating
whether we can increase how much carbon the soil underneath us
can hold
The vast underground network of fungi beneath our feet stores over 13
gigatons of carbon around the world, roughly equivalent to 36 per cent
of yearly global fossil fuel emissions, according to new research.

It is widely believed that mycorrhizal fungi could store carbon, as
the fungi forms symbiotic relationships with almost all land plants
and transports carbon, converted into sugars and fats by the plant,
into soil, but until now the true extent of just how much carbon the
fungi were storing wasn't known.

The discovery by a team of scientists, including researchers from the University of Sheffield, that fungi is storing over a third of the
carbon created from fossil fuel emissions each year indicates that it
could be crucial as nations seek to tackle climate change and reach net
zero. Work is now being undertaken to see whether we could increase how
much carbon the soil underneath us can store.

Mycorrhizal fungi have been supporting life on land for at least 450
million years and make up vast underground networks all around us - even forming beneath roads, gardens, and houses, on every continent on Earth.

The international team of scientists, including experts from the
University of Sheffield's School of Biosciences, conducted a meta-analysis
of hundreds of studies looking at plant-soil processes to understand
how much carbon is being stored by the fungi on a global scale.

Their findings, published in Current Biology, revealed that an estimated
13.12 gigatons of CO2 is transferred from plants to the fungi annually, transforming the soil beneath our feet to a massive carbon pool and the
most effective carbon capture storage unit in the world.

The amount of carbon stored equates to roughly 36 per cent of yearly
global fossil fuel emissions - more than China emits each year.

Researchers are now calling for fungi to be considered in biodiversity
and conservation policies, given its crucial role in cutting carbon
emissions. At the current rate, the UN warns that 90 per cent of soils
could be degraded by 2050, which could be catastrophic for not only
curbing climate change and rising temperatures, but for the productivity
of crops and plants too.

Professor Katie Field, Professor of Plant-Soil Processes at the
University of Sheffield and co-author of the study, said: "Mycorrhizal
fungi represent a blind spot in carbon modelling, conservation, and
restoration - the numbers we've uncovered are jaw-dropping, and when
we're thinking about solutions for climate we should also be thinking
about what we can harness that exists already.

"Soil ecosystems are being destroyed at an alarming rate through
agriculture, development and other industry, but the wider impacts of disruption of soil communities are poorly understood. When we disrupt
the ancient life support systems in the soil, we sabotage our efforts
to limit global heating and undermine the ecosystems on which we depend.

"More needs to be done to protect these underground networks - we
already knew that they were essential for biodiversity, and now we have
even more evidence that they are crucial to the health of our planet."
The researchers are now investigating how long the carbon is stored by
the fungi in the soil, and are seeking to further explore the role that
fungi plays in Earth's ecosystems.

Dr Heidi Hawkins, lead author of the study from the University of Cape
Town, said: "We always suspected that we may have been overlooking a major carbon pool. Understandably, much focus has been placed on protecting
and restoring forests as a natural way to mitigate climate change,
but little attention has been paid to the fate of the vast amounts of
carbon dioxide that are moved from the atmosphere during photosynthesis
by those plants and sent belowground to mycorrhizal fungi.

"A major gap in our knowledge is the permanence of carbon within
mycorrhizal structures. We do know that it is a flux, with some being
retained in mycorrhizal structures while the fungus lives, and even
after it dies. Some will be decomposed into small carbon molecules and
from there either bind to particles in the soil, or even be reused by
plants. And certainly, some carbon will be lost as carbon dioxide gas
during respiration by other microbes or the fungus itself." Professor
Toby Kiers, senior author from Vrije University Amsterdam and co-
founder of the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, said:
"The paper is part of a global push to understand the role that fungi
play in Earth's ecosystems. We know that mycorrhizal fungi are vitally important ecosystem engineers, but they are invisible to most people.

"Mycorrhizal fungi lie at the base of the food webs that support much
of life on Earth, but we are just starting to understand how they
actually work.

There's still so much to learn." One of the projects which is now investigating the role of mycorrhizal fungi in soil carbon and other
nutrient cycles in more detail is being led by the University of
Sheffield's School of Biosciences. Using simulated future climates in specialised outdoor field experiments, the NERC-funded study aims to
improve our understanding of the critical role of soil fungi, alongside
other microbes, in moving carbon belowground and how this will be impacted
by future climate change.

* RELATED_TOPICS
o Plants_&_Animals
# Fungus # Organic # Soil_Types
o Earth_&_Climate
# Global_Warming # Geochemistry # Climate
o Science_&_Society
# Environmental_Policies # Land_Management #
Resource_Shortage
* RELATED_TERMS
o Fossil_fuel o Truffle o Mushroom o Ethanol_fuel o Fungus o
Vegetation o Alcohol_fuel o Climate_change_mitigation

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Sheffield. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Heidi-Jayne Hawkins, Rachael I.M. Cargill, Michael E. Van Nuland,
Stephen
C. Hagen, Katie J. Field, Merlin Sheldrake, Nadejda
A. Soudzilovskaia, E.

Toby Kiers. Mycorrhizal mycelium as a global carbon pool. Current
Biology, 2023; 33 (11): R560 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.02.027 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/06/230605181230.htm

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