Researchers estimate that plants transfer more than 13 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide each year to mycorrhizal fungi, which grow around their roots. The relationships between plants and the fungi that colonise their roots are responsible for locking away a huge amount of carbon underground – maybe equivalent to more than one-third of global emissions from […]
carbon cycle
Can negative emission technologies overcome climate catastrophe?
Humanity is running out of time to deal with the climate crisis. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that we need to limit atmospheric carbon dioxide to less than 450 parts per million in order to have a chance to keep average global surface temperatures from rising more than 1.5°C by the end […]
Trees share vital goodies through a secret underground network
Call it the wood wide web. Although we think of trees as competing with each other for resources, we know from lab studies that they share information and nutrients underground.Trees of the same species growing close together will sometimes fuse their roots and exchange materials. And seedlings of different species can share nutrients via mycorrhiza, […]