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Sep 18, 2023

Vast Networks of Fungi May Hold Key to Climate Fight

An underground system of “living machines” can show how to better capture and

An underground system of "living machines" can show how to better capture and store excess carbon from the atmosphere.

These "ecosystem engineers" can help clean our atmosphere.

Photographer: Manuel Haderer/Getty Images

Amanda Little

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Toby Kiers is a professor of evolutionary biology at Amsterdam's Vrije Universiteit whose research on fungi has led her to revelations about how nature itself can solve the climate crisis. Kiers is looking beyond the astonishing diversity of mushrooms we see growing above ground to the hidden systems we overlook: fungal webs that spread throughout the soil and nourish the roots of trees and plants.

In her laboratory, streams of carbon molecules flow across Kiers's computer screen like the oily bubbles in a lava lamp. Lit up and magnified, the carbon is moving through an infrastructure of gossamer tubes that make up vast underground networks of fungi. These systems comprise a third of the living biomass of soil, binding it together and sustaining much of life on Earth. Soils contain about 75% of the planet's terrestrial carbon, and fungi play a critical role. They are "powerful and underappreciated allies" in the quest to solve climate change, said Kiers.