Common mycorrhizal networks can shuttle carbon between neighboring trees
Beyond trading minerals for sugars, shared fungal threads can move carbon compounds from one tree’s roots to another’s — linking neighbors of the same or different species underground.
Isotope studies show labeled carbon appearing in shaded seedlings connected to sunlit donors through common mycorrhizae. The fungus gains a living highway; the forest gains a quiet redistribution of energy.
Forests are not only solitary trunks competing for light. Belowground, fungi stitch them into networks where carbon can travel as community currency.
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