Soil biologist Dr. Heidi Jane Hawkins discusses the paleobiological and evolutionary origins of mycorrhizal fungal networks with host Shayle Kann.
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“We know from the fossil record that by the time plants moved out of an aquatic environment, so the sea, onto land, we know that this partnership already existed. So the fungi are really, really old. How old exactly? We don't know. But we know by about four hundred and fifty million years ago that these fungi were definitely around. They were definitely colonizing plants”
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More from Dr. Heidi Jane Hawkins
Insight
Hawkins: Mycorrhizal fungi cannot be engineered to draw down additional carbon dioxide
“It's not like we can somehow use mycorrhizae
To additionally now draw down more CO two than they are already.”
Hawkins: Climate efforts should preserve fungal habitats rather than engineer fungi
“I don't think it's so much about it being some kind of carbon reduction system that we can manipulate so much as it's about our behavior change so that we provide conditions that encourage the growth of these mycorrhizal fungi so they can continue to draw down…”
Hawkins: Plant-fungal symbiosis acts as an economic market with resource cheaters
“So describing it as this reciprocal exchange where, like in our own economy, you can get cheetahs you can get fungi that give more than they take or take more than they give. And, you know, like with everything it seems to depend. It depends on the partners in…”
Hawkins: The 13-gigaton fungal carbon pool is just 0.1% of soil carbon
“So I think if you take, you know, all the carbon that is in the soil I did a little calculation a little bit earlier, and we come up with a massive amount, if we express it in CO₂ equivalents, it's nearly
9000.
And our mycorrhizal pool is about 13 gigatons o…”
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