The Underground Network of Microbes That Connects Trees Mapped For First Time (sciencemag.org) 45
For the first time, scientists have mapped the millions of species of fungi and bacteria that swap nutrients between soil and the roots of trees, using a database of more than 28,000 tree species living in more than 70 countries. This interconnected web of organisms throughout the woods is being dubbed the "wood wide web." Science Magazine reports: Before scientists could map the forest's underground ecosystem, they needed to know something more basic: where trees live. Ecologist Thomas Crowther, now at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, gathered vast amounts of data on this starting in 2012, from government agencies and individual scientists who had identified trees and measured their sizes around the world. In 2015, he mapped trees' global distribution and reported that Earth has about 3 trillion trees. Inspired by that paper, Kabir Peay, a biologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, emailed Crowther and suggested doing the same for the web of underground organisms that connects forest trees. Each tree in Crowther's database is closely associated with certain types of microbes. For example, oak and pine tree roots are surrounded by ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi that can build vast underground networks in their search for nutrients. Maple and cedar trees, by contrast, prefer arbuscular mycorrhizae (AM), which burrow directly into trees' root cells but form smaller soil webs. Still other trees, mainly in the legume family (related to crop plants such as soybeans and peanuts), associate with bacteria that turn nitrogen from the atmosphere into usable plant food, a process known as "fixing" nitrogen.
The researchers wrote a computer algorithm to search for correlations between the EM-, AM-, and nitrogen-fixer-associated trees in Crowther's database and local environmental factors such as temperature, precipitation, soil chemistry, and topography. They then used the correlations found by the algorithm to fill in the global map and predict what kinds of fungi would live in places where they didn't have data, which included much of Africa and Asia. Local climate sets the stage for the wood wide web, the team reports today in Nature. In cool temperate and boreal forests, where wood and organic matter decay slowly, network-building EM fungi rule. About four in five trees in these regions associate with these fungi, the authors found, suggesting the webs found in local studies indeed permeate the soils of North America, Europe, and Asia. By contrast, in the warmer tropics where wood and organic matter decay quickly, AM fungi dominate. These fungi form smaller webs and do less intertree swapping, meaning the tropical wood wide web is likely more localized. About 90% of all tree species associate with AM fungi; the vast majority are clustered in the hyperdiverse tropics. Nitrogen fixers were most abundant in hot, dry places such as the desert of the U.S. Southwest. According to the data he gathered, Crowther suggests that about 10% of EM-associated trees could be replaced by AM-associated trees as the planet warms.
"Microbes in forests dominated by AM fungi churn through carbon-containing organic matter faster, so they could liberate lots of heat-trapping carbon dioxide quickly, potentially accelerating a climate change process that is already happening at a frightening pace," the report says.
The researchers wrote a computer algorithm to search for correlations between the EM-, AM-, and nitrogen-fixer-associated trees in Crowther's database and local environmental factors such as temperature, precipitation, soil chemistry, and topography. They then used the correlations found by the algorithm to fill in the global map and predict what kinds of fungi would live in places where they didn't have data, which included much of Africa and Asia. Local climate sets the stage for the wood wide web, the team reports today in Nature. In cool temperate and boreal forests, where wood and organic matter decay slowly, network-building EM fungi rule. About four in five trees in these regions associate with these fungi, the authors found, suggesting the webs found in local studies indeed permeate the soils of North America, Europe, and Asia. By contrast, in the warmer tropics where wood and organic matter decay quickly, AM fungi dominate. These fungi form smaller webs and do less intertree swapping, meaning the tropical wood wide web is likely more localized. About 90% of all tree species associate with AM fungi; the vast majority are clustered in the hyperdiverse tropics. Nitrogen fixers were most abundant in hot, dry places such as the desert of the U.S. Southwest. According to the data he gathered, Crowther suggests that about 10% of EM-associated trees could be replaced by AM-associated trees as the planet warms.
"Microbes in forests dominated by AM fungi churn through carbon-containing organic matter faster, so they could liberate lots of heat-trapping carbon dioxide quickly, potentially accelerating a climate change process that is already happening at a frightening pace," the report says.
Avatar (Score:2)
That sounds cool and spooky at the same time - makes me think of "Avatar"..... (The Space Pocahontas movie)
Re: Avatar (Score:2)
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Quick, let's set up a "think tank" to deny this science...
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Except there are no electrical signals in our roots.
That's because we killed our mother.
Digestive System (Score:3)
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Salp? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Always with the climate change hysteria... (Score:1, Insightful)
As a gardener, I'm interested in fungi and mycorrhiza. It's good stuff. Helps make my plants grow without watering. Helps break down my compost and produce excellent soil. So, I was interested in this article, up until the end when they threw in that quip about how mycorrhiza could liberate CO2 faster and accelerate global warming. F*** that. Don't these stupid scientists have any understanding of the fact that plants consume CO2 in order to carry out photosynthesis? If mycorrhiza liberates CO2, it's just g
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Yeah, that Arctic polar ice cap melting isn't really happening, it's all a figment of 95% of scientists who study climate for a living. Sooner or later, the moon landing will be definitively proven to be a hoax done at a Disney studio.
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Most important: Weed gets benefit from increased CO2.
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Carbon is sequestered naturally (coal formation) when plants do not break down completely in the soil, most often in acidic wetlands or at abyssal ocean depths. Where soil bacteria in combination with local climate and ecology do a good job, the carbon cycle remains short term: atmospheric carbon to trees to soil organisms and then back to the air for each generation of trees.
Tree (Score:3)
From tree to shining tree [wnycstudios.org]
Goddamn script kiddies! (Score:2)
Mushroom farming (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Mushroom farming (Score:4, Informative)
Chanterelles actually are mycorrhizae fungus which they talk about in the article. It is the symbiotic relationship with trees that makes them difficult to cultivate outside of a forest.
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Chanterelles actually are mycorrhizae fungus which they talk about in the article. It is the symbiotic relationship with trees that makes them difficult to cultivate outside of a forest.
That's why you most often find mushrooms in association with tree roots.
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Mycorrhizae are symbiotic with trees (Score:3, Informative)
One thing that might be missed in reading the article is that that mycorrhizae and nitrogen-fixing bacteria are in a symbiotic relationship with trees. The mycorrhizae are, in essence ,an extension of a trees root system, helping the tree absorb water and nutrients.
Often when transplanting trees, or in situations where trees are under stress, arborist will often inoculate the soil with mycorrhizae to improve root function.
There is a good article on mycorrhizae here: https://treesforlife.org.uk/forest/ecology/mycorrhizas/
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"One thing that might be missed in reading the article is that that mycorrhizae and nitrogen-fixing bacteria are in a symbiotic relationship with trees. The mycorrhizae are, in essence, an extension of a trees root system, helping the tree absorb water and nutrients."
Invasive plants, such as garlic mustard, change the soil chemistry which inhibits these microbes and weakens trees.
https://www.reddit.com/r/invas... [reddit.com]
So where's my spore drive? (Score:3)
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Buried in a terrible prequel, because it "never worked" and will never be mentioned again...
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