Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Fungi by Age 15

🌍 1. Vast Global Network and Global Symbiosis

Mycorrhizal fungi form complex underground networks across terrestrial Earth. Acting as one of Earth’s circulatory systems, they form partnerships with nearly 80% of plant species. The networks facilitate nutrient exchange, move water, draw down carbon and support biodiversity. A single teaspoon of healthy soil can contain up to one hundred meters of mycorrhizal hyphae.

🌱 2. Evolution of Plant Life

Mycorrhizal fungi played a crucial role in enabling plants to transition from aquatic to terrestrial environments over 400 million years ago. Acting as early root systems, they made possible both life on land, and the ecosystems we rely on today.

🌾 3. Underpin Food Production

Most of the crops we rely on — from wheat to vegetables — depend on mycorrhizal fungi for nutrient absorption, access to water, and protection from heavy metals. These fungi dramatically enhance a plant's root system, increasing key minerals that make our crops more nutrient dense. They even help crops make bigger, sweeter flowers, which help protect pollinator populations. As a result, mycorrhizal fungi are essential to global agriculture.

🌎 4. Carbon Cycling and Climate Regulation

Mycorrhizal fungi help draw an estimated 13 billion tons of carbon into the soil annually - nearly 1/3 of global emissions from fossil fuels. By partnering with plants, mycorrhizal fungi are a key entry point of carbon into soils. As a result, they help regulate CO2 in the atmosphere, stabilize soils, sequester carbon, and play a significant role in keeping carbon underground. This makes fungi essential allies in the fight against climate change.

🌿 5. Regeneration and Adaptability

After wildfires, droughts, or human disturbance, mycorrhizal fungi are often the first responders. They help plants regenerate, rebuild root systems, and re-establish nutrient pathways. In extreme habitats like deserts or tundras, these fungi enable plant survival where conditions would otherwise be too harsh.

💧 6. Provide Water Supply to Plants

Functioning like underground pumps, mycorrhizal fungi transport water from deep in the soil to plant roots. This adaptation is key for survival in arid conditions and helps plants withstand drought and water stress. In drought conditions, this water transport can increase a plant’s survival rate by up to 40%. Fungal networks also help regulate water balance in ecosystems, especially during heatwaves and dry seasons.

🌻 7. Break Down Pollutants

Mycorrhizal fungi help clean polluted soils by breaking down or immobilizing harmful substances such as microplastics. They also act as natural filters, protecting groundwater and supporting healthier ecosystems. This makes them valuable tools for phytoremediation — the use of plants and fungi to clean polluted soils and protect groundwater.

🔄 8. Global Nutrient Exchange

By extending root systems up to 100 times their normal reach, these fungi enable plants to access and exchange nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen. Mycorrhizal partnerships can increase phosphorus uptake by up to 50%. This boosts plant health, soil fertility, and even enhances flowers for pollinators.

🪨 9. Soil Structure (and Creation)

Mycorrhizal fungi are master soil engineers. As their hyphae weave through the earth, they bind soil particles together, creating stable aggregates that prevent erosion and improve water retention. This physical structure boosts soil aeration and allows plant roots and microbes to thrive. They build the physical scaffolding for living soils, supporting agriculture, biodiversity, and carbon storage.

🌌 10. Invisible but Fundamental

Soils are home to over half of all known species on Earth, and mycorrhizal fungi make that diversity possible. Though unseen, mycorrhizal fungi create the hidden infrastructure of underground ecosystems. Fungal networks create microhabitats that host trillions of beneficial microbes, and support the belowground biodiversity that sustains life above.

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