<
https://theconversation.com/warming-winters-are-disrupting-the-hidden-world-of-fungi-the-result-can-shift-mountain-grasslands-to-scrub-274087>
"When you look out across a snowy winter landscape, it might seem like nature
is fast asleep. Yet, under the surface, tiny organisms are hard at work,
consuming the previous year’s dead plant material and other organic matter.
These soil microorganisms – Earth’s recyclers – liberate nutrients that will
act as fertilizer once grasses and other plants wake up with the spring
snowmelt.
Key among them are arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, found in over 75% of plant
species around the planet. These threadlike fungi grow like webs inside plant
roots, where they provide up to 50% of the plant’s nutrient and water supply in
exchange for plant carbon, which the fungi use to grow and reproduce.
In winter, the snowpack insulates mycorrhizal fungi and other microorganisms
like a blanket, allowing them to continue to decompose soil organic matter,
even when air temperatures above the snow are well below freezing. However,
when rain washes out the snowpack or a healthy snowpack doesn’t form, water in
the soil can later freeze – as can mycorrhizal fungi.
In a new study in the Rocky Mountain grasslands, we dug into plots of land that
for three decades scientists led by ecologist John Harte had warmed by 2
degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) using suspended heaters that mimicked the air
temperature the area is likely to see by the end of this century.
Above ground, the plots shifted over that time from predominantly grassland to
more desertlike shrublands. Under the surface, we found something else: There
were noticeably fewer beneficial mycorrhizal fungi, which left plants less able
to acquire nutrients or buffer themselves from environmental stressors like
freezing temperatures and drought.
These changes represent a major shift in the ecosystem, one that, on a wide
scale, could reverberate through the food web as the grasses and forbs, such as
wildflowers, that cattle and wildlife rely on decline and are replaced by a
more desertlike environment."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
