{"id":673,"date":"2026-06-21T11:38:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T11:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=673"},"modified":"2026-06-21T11:38:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T11:38:35","slug":"our-hidden-fungal-networks-could-reach-beyond-the-solar-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=673","title":{"rendered":"Our Hidden Fungal Networks Could Reach Beyond the Solar System"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This story was originally published by\u00a0<\/em>Inside Climate News\u00a0and\u00a0is reproduced here as part of the\u00a0<\/em>Climate Desk\u00a0collaboration.<\/em><\/p>

Read more Trump Takes Two Steps Back in Ending His Iran War<\/a><\/p>\n

Hidden underground around<\/span> the world lie 110 quadrillion kilometers of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal networks\u2014webs of ultrathin threads that, if connected in a single line, would stretch almost a billion times the distance between the Earth and the sun, according to new research published in Science<\/em> on June 11.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These fungal communities form intimate relationships with the roots of plants, which they provide with nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen in exchange for carbon, 1 billion tons of which the networks sequester underground annually, previous research has found. If the fungal network wasn\u2019t storing it, that carbon would be warming the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

But those networks have never been mapped globally until now. The\u00a0new study\u00a0led by\u00a0Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), an organization founded to map mycorrhizal fungi networks, used a combination of literature review, soil samples from around the globe, machine learning, and laboratory testing to estimate the distribution and mass of these systems and\u00a0map\u00a0where they are densest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the moment where we went from knowing that this system exists to really knowing where it is, how dense it is and where it\u2019s been,\u201d said Toby Kiers, executive director and co-founder of SPUN and a co-author of the study.<\/p>\n

For decades, researchers have known arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi form intimate symbiotic relationships with roughly 80 percent of the globe\u2019s plant species and are found nearly everywhere plants are. But the extent of those networks and where they are densest, such as grasslands, and where they are being lost, like in agricultural areas, hasn\u2019t been well understood until now.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The study] helps us come to grips with how important these below ground organisms can be to everything that we see above ground,\u201d said James Bever, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Kansas who studies the interactions between plants and microbes like fungi in soils but was not involved in the new study.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Justin Stewart, an evolutionary ecologist at SPUN and lead author of the study, said previous studies the team had done on biodiversity of fungi were similar to asking someone to describe the forest outside their home.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey could say, \u2018Well, there are three tree species in it.\u2019 That\u2019s great. That tells me about the biodiversity,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you don\u2019t actually know how big the forest is, how far apart the trees are. You don\u2019t have information on its structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mycorrhizal fungal networks are made up of hyphae, each smaller than a strand of human hair. These living pipes transport the nutrients and carbon between the plants and fungi.<\/p>\n

Because they are so long and thin, Stewart said, they can reach deeper into soils than roots, getting nutrients deep underground that plants can\u2019t reach, while simultaneously storing carbon where it can stay put for a long time under the right conditions.\u00a0<\/p>

Read more The Beautiful Game Is More Unaffordable Than Ever<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re getting a win-win,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cThe plants are growing better, and carbon\u2019s being drawn down. That all depends on having dense fungal networks and soils that are active and alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quantifying these fungal networks started with a review of existing studies on mycorrhizal fungi. Those studies contained 16,000 core samples taken from ecosystems around the world to understand the length of the fungal threads in a volume of soil. Each sample was geolocated, and from there the team was able to use machine learning to create predictive maps of fungal networks globally, and identify where the model is performing well and where uncertainties show more data is needed.<\/p>\n

Working with AMOLF, a research institute in Amsterdam, they developed a technique using a robot with a camera that recorded fungal networks growing over time in a lab, to get better estimates of their widths. From there, the team was able to calculate the network\u2019s mass, which amounted to about five times the weight of all humans on Earth.<\/p>\n

The study only covers living arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal networks, Stewart said, and doesn\u2019t include dead fungal networks, which also help to store carbon and add to the total biomass and influence of the networks on ecosystems. Research into dead fungal networks is still being explored.<\/p>\n

The study also found where these networks are most threatened. Fungal network densities across croplands are about half of what they are in wild ecosystems. Meanwhile, wild grassland ecosystems hold about 40 percent of the world\u2019s arbuscular mycorrhizal biomass. Yet those grasslands are among Earth\u2019s least protected ecosystems, and they are converted into farmland at four times the rate of forests, posing a potential threat to these networks and the benefits they bring to plant life and carbon storage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Previous research from SPUN has found 90 percent of fungal communities\u00a0across the globe\u00a0are unprotected, and many ecosystems, like the deserts of the American Southwest,\u00a0are understudied.<\/p>\n

What exactly is driving mycorrhizal fungi losses, and the consequences of that decline, need to be explored next, the researchers said, which is why the SPUN team will be at this year\u2019s United Nations Climate Change Conference\u2014COP31\u2014to present to policymakers about the importance of the networks and the role they could play in protecting ecosystems and sequestering carbon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Understanding mycorrhizal fungi more deeply at the ground level is key, said Corentin Bisot, an AMOLF biophysicist and co-author of the study.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still far from completely understanding how, if you have a grassland next door, and you want to [increase] microbes and fungi there,\u201d Bisot said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have the toolbox for you to do it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This study, Stewart said, is just the first map. And like the first maps the Spaniards drew of California\u2014which presented the state as an island, he said, there will be new discoveries about the density of fungi networks around the globe to grow the public\u2019s understanding of them.<\/p>

Read more Grok Is More Important Than Clean Air, DOJ Says<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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