The New Phytologist Foundation’s Post

Alongside a group of international, multi-disciplinary scientists, #WWU Professor Rebecca Bunn, is challenging leading ideas about the carbon-for-nutrient exchange between plants and beneficial mycorrhizal fungi. Mycorrhizal fungi grow around the roots of most land plants, forming intimate structures that allow resources to pass between—nutrients from fungi to plants, and sugars or lipids from plants to fungi. Each year, this process transfers an estimated 3.6 gigatons of carbon to mycorrhizal fungi, the mass equivalent of ice covering New York City’s Central Park 1.2 km deep. A portion of the carbon transferred to fungi may be held long-term and could help mitigate planet-warming fossil fuel emissions. Learn more about this work in The New Phytologist Foundation and its impacts at the link in the comments.