And their relation to climate change and more.
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Fungi made the world as we know it. As some of the first life forms on the planet, they consumed minerals locked in rocks, creating what we now know as soil. Without them, there would be no plants on land, and therefore, no animals. No us.
Dr. Kiers’s expedition to southern Chile aims to fill in some of the gaps in knowledge about fungi, specifically the mycorrhizal fungi that live symbiotically with plant roots and drive carbon into the soil. That is what gives them such an urgent role on a hotter planet.
“Mycorrhizal networks,” Dr. Kiers said, “are a major global carbon sink.”
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