Inside Climate News: Threads of Earth’s Underground Fungal Networks Are Long Enough to Reach Beyond the Solar System

For the first time ever, researchers have quantified the length and mass of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal networks globally and mapped the ecosystems where they are densest. Hidden underground around the world lie 110 quadrillion kilometers of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal networks—webs of ultra-thin threads that, if connected in a single line, would stretch almost a billion times thge distance between the Earth and the sun, according to new research published in Science on Thursday. These fungal communities form intimate relationships with the roots of plants, which they provide with nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen in exchange for carbon, 1 billion tons of which the networks sequester underground annually, previous research has found. If the fungal network wasn’t storing it, that carbon would be warming the atmosphere. More HERE.