Mushrooms growing in northern forests may provide a helping hand in combating climate change. As soils heat up, the fungi that feast on dead plant material can wither away and emit less carbon dioxide, new research suggests. Such changes in northern forests and tundra, which store an estimated 30 per cent of terrestrial carbon, could substantially alter atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas.
In a spruce forest near Fairbanks, Alaska, Steven Allison and Kathleen Treseder of the University of California, Irvine, measured a literal greenhouse effect, enclosing plots of soil in plastic structures that trapped heat but let in rain. The greenhouse plots averaged 0.5 °C warmer than controls, and over three years lost 22 per cent of their moisture — and more than half of their bacteria and fungi, according to DNA analyses. The fungal group most affected includes mushroom species thought to produce high carbon emissions. The release of carbon dioxide from the covered plots fell by up to 50 per cent as soils dried at the end of each growing season.
The authors say the results were unexpected, and suggest they are specific to the type of environment they studied: a well-drained forest with no permafrost, such that the soil dries easily.
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Barnett, A. Shrooms shrivel. Nature Clim Change 1, 152 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/climate.2008.120
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/climate.2008.120
