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Research has shown that under each forest and wood there is a complex network of roots, fungi and bacteria that connects trees and plants.
This underground social network, almost 500 million years old, is now known as the "wood network".
Now, an international study has produced the world's first map of "Mycorrhizal mushroom networks" that dominate this secret world.
The details appear in the Nature journal.
Through machine learning, researchers at ETH's Crowther Lab in Zurich, Switzerland, and at Stanford University in the United States used the Global Forest Initiative database. which covers 1.2 million forest tree plots comprising 28,000 species, from more than 70 countries.
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Using millions of direct observations of trees and their symbiotic associations in the field, researchers were able to build models from the bottom up to visualize these fungal networks for the first time.
Professor Thomas Crowther, one of the report's authors, told the BBC: "It's the first time we are able to understand the world under our feet, but on the scale World. "
Research shows how important mycorrhizal networks are to limiting climate change – and how vulnerable they are to the effects of climate change.
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"Just like an MRI brain scan helps us understand how the brain works, this global map of soil fungi helps us understand how global ecosystems work," said Professor Crowther.
"What we're seeing is that some types of microorganisms live in some parts of the world and we understand that we can understand how to restore different types of ecosystems and also how the climate is changing."
Losing pieces of broad wood tape could well increase "feedback loop temperatures and warming carbon emissions".
Mycorrhizal fungi are those that form a symbiotic relationship with plants.
There are two main groups of mycorrhizal fungi: arbuscular fungi (AM) that enter the host roots and ectomycorrhizal fungi (ME) that surround the tree roots without penetrating them.
EM fungi, mainly found in temperate and boreal systems, help trap more carbon from the atmosphere. They are more vulnerable to climate change.
AM fungi, more dominant in the tropics, favor the rapid carbon cycle.
According to research, 60% of trees are linked to EM fungi, but as temperatures rise, these fungi – and associated tree species – will decline and be replaced by AM fungi.
"The types of fungi that support huge carbon stores in the soil are disappearing and are being replaced by those that release carbon into the atmosphere."
This could potentially accelerate climate change.
If there is no reduction in carbon emissions by 2100, there could be a 10% reduction in EMs and the trees that depend on them.
The results of this discovery can now serve as a basis for restoration efforts, such as the United Nations campaign of one trillion trees, indicating which types of trees, according to their mycorrhizal network. associated, to plant in which area of the world.
Dr. Merlin Sheldrake, a mycorrhizal ecologist, said, "Plant relationships with mycorrhizal fungi underlie most of the earth's life.This study … provides key insights into who lives where and why. data will help researchers to increase the very large. "
Martin Bidartondo, Honorary Research Associate at Kew Gardens, said, "For the first time, we have this large-scale dataset that tells us what's happening – around the world.
"In our day-to-day activities, we rely heavily on the carbon in the soil to stay in place, but also to continue accumulating, if we create conditions by changing the type of fungi that interact with the plants in the soil in which then these soils are starting to stop accumulating carbon, or they are beginning to release it, and then the speed at which we are seeing change will accelerate further. "
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