Phenylalanine
Suetsugu K, Yoshimizu C, Matsubayashi J, Tayasu I
Mycorrhizal Networks
Orchids in your garden or local woodland may be quietly extracting sugars from soil fungi rather than making all their own food — and this research shows the deception is far more widespread than we realized.
Most plants team up with underground fungi in a mutual exchange — the plant shares sugars, the fungus shares water and minerals. But some plants cheat and take carbon (energy) from the fungus without giving much back. Scientists found a clever new way to catch this cheating by tracking a specific amino acid called phenylalanine, which acts like a chemical fingerprint revealing when a plant's energy came from a fungus rather than sunlight.
Key Findings
Bulk stable isotope analysis is insufficient to detect fungal-derived carbon acquisition in arbuscular mycorrhizal plants and rhizoctonia-associated orchids
Compound-specific isotope analysis of phenylalanine provides higher resolution detection of fungal carbon transfer to green plants
Partial mycoheterotrophy (fungal carbon theft) may be more widespread among green plants than previously measurable with standard methods
chevron_right Technical Summary
Researchers used stable isotope analysis of phenylalanine — a specific amino acid — to detect how much carbon green plants secretly steal from their fungal partners underground. Standard bulk isotope methods weren't sensitive enough to catch this theft in orchids and arbuscular mycorrhizal plants, but tracking phenylalanine revealed hidden fungal-derived nutrition that was previously invisible.
Abstract Preview
Beyond fully mycoheterotrophic plants, many green plants may also obtain carbon from fungal partners. However, bulk stable isotope analyses often lack sufficient resolution in arbuscular mycorrhiza...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
Species Mentioned
Was this useful?
Ancient DNA Reveals Pre-Columbian Amazonian Forest Management at Scale
Forests and fruits we romanticize as wild — including many plants now in our kitchens and gardens — may exist in their current abundance precisely because an...
Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae, a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Orchids are cosmopolitan plants, living in diverse habitats on every continent except Antarctica. The world's richest diversity of orchid...