
Credit: Serita Frey
Serita Frey, UNH professor of , recently authored a state-of-the-science article, , that addresses a controversy among scientists about whether or not mycorrhizal fungi contribute to the soil carbon cycle. (Spoiler alert: They do.)
Mycorrhizal fungi are microorganisms that attach to plant roots, effectively extending the plantâs access to nutrients and water. Greater than 90 percent of all plants have this fungus attached to their roots, and many plants could not survive without it.
For a non-scientist working through Freyâs comprehensive summation of whatâs known about mycorrhizal fungi, there is one sentence that stands out as simple to grasp: two-times more carbon is stored in soil than in all vegetation and the atmosphere combined. This arresting fact gives instantaneous meaning to the intricacies of the soil carbon cycle: a mass discharge of this stored greenhouse gas could have catastrophic implications for the environment.
Frey says historically plant-centric research on mycorrhizal fungi ignored the possibility that these hard-working microorganisms influence soilâs ability to store carbon. Current research, however, confirms that they are both facilitators of carbon storage and influencers of organic matter decomposition.
âRecently there been increasing interest in what these mycorrhizal fungi are doing for carbon storage in the soil,â says Frey. âThey do contribute. We now know that a lot of that carbon plants take out of the atmosphere goes into the mycorrhizae and that then, because fungi are microscopic and they get into places in the soil that roots canât go, that carbon is stabilized long term.â
Whatâs more, the knowledge Frey makes plain can help scientists predict how microorganisms in soil respond to environmental changes and figure out how to keep soil carbon stores stable.
âWhen you think about climate change mitigation strategies,â continues Frey, âthe fungal component has an important role in a carbon sequestration strategy. Thereâs the protection of carbon in soil and the release of carbon from soil, and itâs the balance of those two processes thatâs going to influence the role that soils play in greenhouse gas production or mitigation. The mycorrhizae are doing both of those things.â
Frey was invited by Sarah Hobbie, professor of ecosystem ecology at the University of Minnesota and one of the editors of the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, to write the state-of-the-science-paper, a request that is commonly considered an honor among researchers. The internationally recognized soil expert was recently named among the Web of Science Groupâs 2019 Highly Cited Researchers, a designation that includes just 0.1 percent of the worldâs scientists.
âTo me itâs just always fascinating that the activities of something thatâs microscopic, that we canât see and that few people Ìęthink much about, can actually scale up and have implications for the whole planet,â says Frey. âTo me, thatâs what blows my mind pretty much every day.â
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Written By:
Sarah Schaier | College of Life Sciences and Agriculture