The fiber network of underground fungi is long enough to reach beyond the Solar System

The study only focused on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal networks, Stewart said, and did not include dead networks, which also help store carbon and increase biodiversity and the network’s capacity for ecosystems. Research on the network of dead fungi is still under investigation.

The study also found where these networks are most vulnerable. The density of fungal networks in all fields is about half of that in the wild. Currently, wild grass ecosystems contain about 40 percent of the world’s mycorrhizal biomass. However, that grass is one of the most vulnerable species in the world, and it is converted to fields at four times the rate of forests, which can cause a threat to these networks and the benefits they bring to plants and carbon conservation.

Previous research from SPUN has done found 90 percent of the fungal colonies all around the world unprotectedand many ecosystems, such as the deserts of the American Southwest, they are trained.

What is driving the destruction of mycorrhizal fungi, and the consequences of this decline, should be investigated accordingly, the researchers said, which is why the SPUN team will be at the United Nations Climate Change Conference this year-COP31-to present to the policy makers the importance of the network and the role they can play in protecting the environment and monitoring the atmosphere.

Understanding mycorrhizal fungi more deeply in the soil is important, says Corentin Bisot, an AMOLF biologist and co-author of the study.

“We are still far from understanding how, if you have a lawn next door, and you want to (add) pathogens and fungi there,” Bisot said. “We don’t have a toolbox for you to do it.”

The survey, Stewart said, is just the first map. And like the first Spanish maps of California – which showed the state as an island, he said – there will be new information about the density of networks around the world for people to understand.

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