Researchers suggest that the role of ectomycorrhizal fungi be included in carbon accounting
A new study led by the University of Helsinki shows that the decrease in carbon use efficiency and net ecosystem exchange observed in boreal forests from south to north may be due to the abundance of ectomycorrhizal fungi.
The proposed approach could easily be incorporated into carbon balance models to quantify carbon use by ectomycorrhizal fungi without having to perform more complex analysis of the carbon and nutrient interactions underlying ectomycorrhizal processes.
“The results of the study highlight the need to better understand the role of microorganisms as carbon users, but also as machines that produce carbon residues that can have a longer lifespan,” says the first author of the study. Annikki Mäkelä from the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry of the University of Helsinki.
The study suggests that this approach can improve the prediction of biomass growth in different soils with different microbial composition.
A more accurate forecast of biosphere carbon sinks
According to the researchers, these characteristics of ectomycorrhizal fungi as carbon consumers and garbage producers should also be included in global vegetation models, so that carbon sinks in the biosphere and their feedbacks to climate change could be predicted more accurately.
The efficiency of carbon use, i.e. the ratio of net and gross primary production, describes the efficiency of vegetation to collect photosynthetic carbon into biomass. Other uses of coal include maintenance and construction ventilation. In this study, ectomycorrhizal fungi were included as additional consumers of plant-derived carbon.
Original article
Mäkelä A., Tian X., Repo A., Ilvesniemi H., Marshall J., Minunno F., Näsholm T., Schiestl-Aalto P., Lehtonen A. 2022. Do mycorrhizal symbionts drive latitudinal trends in photosynthetic carbon utilization efficiency and carbon sequestration in boreal forests? Forest ecology and forest management 520:120355, September 2022, DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2022.120355
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