The soil beneath our feet is permeated by huge fungal networks that are sequestering a colossal 5bn tons of carbon dioxide every year (equivalent to the amount of carbon dioxide emitted annually by the United States). Mycorrhizal fungi use carbon to create filaments through the ground that connect trees and plants in symbiotic relationships. They exchange nutrients for carbon, in some cases providing up to 80% of the nutrients required by a plant.
These fungal networks are the foundation of most food systems, and perform a crucial function in soil fertility. So obviuosly, being the blundering idiots we are, we’re destroying these beneficial systems at an incredible rate, soil fertility is being wrecked by modern farming techniques that smother the land in poisonus chemicals and deep-plough it mercilessly.
in an attempt to protect them from this scale of damage scientists are embarking on a huge mapping project to learn more about them. These networks are nothing short of amazing, they defend the plants and trees that they are connected to from disease and join them up in beneficial shared networks.
Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN)
“Nearly all plants on Earth form a symbiosis with mycorrhizal fungi. These fungi have altered the evolutionary history of the earth”
This is the organisation tasked with mapping the networks. They will be using AI to identify key places for the collection of 10,000 samples around the world.
Plants and fungi ‘exchange resources with one another and are able to strike compromises, resolve trade-offs and deploy sophisticated trading strategies.’ A huge imperative with the study is the fact that underground networks limit global heating.
Entangled Life
The best place to find out more about networks is Merlin Sheldrake’s book Entangled Life, an eye opening read that lays bare the hidden world beneath our feet.
Fungi throw our concepts of individuality and even intelligence into question. They can change our minds, heal our bodies, and even help us remediate environmental disaster. By examining fungi on their own terms, Sheldrake reveals how these extraordinary organisms – and our relationships with them – are changing our understanding of how life works.
The New Yorker said ‘The more we learn about fungi, Sheldrake observes, the less the natural world makes sense without them.’
