The underground fungal network that stores a third of the world’s fossil-fuel emissions
How Do Fungi Keep the Planet Healthy?
Mycorrhizal fungi partner with over 80% of Earth’s plant species, trading minerals for carbon in a relationship that dates back 450 million years. Toby Kiers, an evolutionary biologist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, uses economics and game theory—plus fluorescent quantum dots and imaging robots—to reveal how these brainless networks decide whom to trade with and shift resources toward plants that pay more. Her lab tracks half a million nodes per experiment, uncovering a two-way flow that defies simple plumbing.
This is an open-pipe system, yet it has flows moving in two directions at the same time. So it’s like a river going north and south at the same time.