A new study maps living arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal networks and estimates they can connect across vast distances—possibly long enough, in theory, to extend beyond the Solar System. The work also pinpoints where these living networks are most at risk on Eart
In the dark, underfoot, living fungal threads knit plant communities together—so extensively that a new mapping effort suggests the networks could be long enough to reach beyond the Solar System.
The study focuses only on living arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal networks, according to Stewart. It does not include dead fungal networks. which the researchers note also help store carbon. add to total biomass. and shape how the networks influence ecosystems. Research into those dead fungal networks is still being explored.
What the map does deliver is a stark picture of uneven protection across the planet. Fungal network densities across croplands are about half of what they are in wild ecosystems. Wild grassland ecosystems hold about 40 percent of the world’s arbuscular mycorrhizal biomass. yet those grasslands are among Earth’s least protected ecosystems.
Those same grasslands are also being converted into farmland at four times the rate of forests, creating a direct worry for the living fungal networks and for the benefits they bring to plant life and carbon storage.
The pressure on fungal life isn’t limited to farmland conversion. Previous research from SPUN has found that 90 percent of fungal communities across the globe are unprotected, and that many ecosystems—like the deserts of the American Southwest—are still understudied.
For the researchers, the immediate question is what comes next if these networks keep shrinking. What exactly is driving mycorrhizal fungi losses, and what consequences follow from that decline, need to be explored next, the researchers said.
That is partly why the SPUN team plans to take their findings to policymakers at this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference—COP31—emphasizing the importance of these networks and the role they could play in protecting ecosystems and sequestering carbon.
Understanding these fungi more deeply at the ground level is key. said Corentin Bisot. an AMOLF biophysicist and co-author of the study. Bisot said. “We’re still far from completely understanding how. if you have a grassland next door. and you want to [increase] microbes and fungi there. ” and added. “We don’t have the toolbox for you to do it.”.
Stewart described the current study as the first map. He compared it to early maps drawn by the Spaniards of California. which treated the region as an island; in the same spirit. he said. new discoveries about the density of fungi networks around the globe are expected to grow public understanding of them.
The message landing on the page is not just about extraordinary reach in theory. It’s also about a fragile reality already visible in the numbers: half the fungal density in croplands compared with wild ecosystems. grasslands carrying a large share of fungal biomass while facing conversion. and an overwhelming share of fungal communities left unprotected.
arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi fungal networks carbon storage biomass croplands wild grasslands COP31 SPUN AMOLF mycorrhizal fungi losses underground ecology
So we’re worried about fungi “stretching beyond the Solar System”?? Like how far are we talking, Mars dirt?
Wait, I thought fungi are dead sometimes and that stores carbon, right? But then they only mapped the living ones, so how can they say anything is at risk without counting the dead stuff too. Either way, sounds like farming is messing with everything like always.
Not gonna lie, this sounds like regular propaganda for “protect nature” lol. If wild grasslands have 40% of the biomass but are “least protected,” wouldn’t that mean we should just… protect them? Also I saw somewhere that deserts are unstudied, so maybe it’s just that we don’t know what’s there.
They say croplands have half the fungal density of wild areas and then grasslands are being turned into farmland 4 times faster than forests. But does that mean the fungi networks like… run out of oxygen or something? And if the networks could reach “beyond the Solar System” then like are plants connected to alien spores now? I’m confused but also kinda terrified for carbon storage.