Many green plants may secretly steal carbon from fungi
Merckx VSFT, Verbeek C, Figura T, Carter J, Kikuchi IABS
Mycorrhizal Networks
The fungal threads lacing through your garden soil might be quietly feeding some of your green plants extra carbon, not just water and minerals, which could explain why certain species thrive in shade or poor soil where photosynthesis alone shouldn't cut it.
Almost all land plants trade sugar to underground fungi in exchange for water and nutrients. Scientists already knew a few leafless plants cheat this system by stealing sugar from the fungal network instead of making their own. This paper argues that many ordinary green, photosynthesizing plants might be doing a bit of the same secret stealing, though nobody yet knows how common it really is.
Key Findings
Ghost-like nonphotosynthetic 'mycoheterotrophic' plants are known to fully steal carbon from arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal networks
Emerging evolutionary, physiological, and genetic evidence suggests ordinary green plants may also partially draw carbon from the same fungi, making them mixotrophs rather than pure autotrophs
The taxonomic extent of this partial mycoheterotrophy remains undetermined, limiting understanding of its role in plant survival and ecosystem function
chevron_right Technical Summary
Most plants that team up with soil fungi don't just take water and nutrients in exchange for sugar; new evidence suggests many green plants may also secretly pull carbon back from the fungal network, a hidden feeding strategy scientists are only starting to map.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Partial mycoheterotrophy: a common strategy in arbuscular mycorrhizal plants?
The vast majority of land plants transfer part of the organic carbon they produce by photosynthesis to arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi inside their root cells; the fungi in turn help plants to ta...
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