Mycorrhizal fungi trade soil minerals for tree sugars beneath forest floors
Fine fungal threads wrap or enter tree roots and fan into soil far beyond what roots alone can reach. The fungus mines phosphorus and nitrogen; the tree pays in carbohydrates from photosynthesis.
Those partnerships underpin seedling survival, drought resilience, and nutrient cycling in forests from tropics to taiga — distinct from the claim that fungi are most of soil living mass.
A forest’s hidden economy runs on trade routes thinner than hair. Cut the living roots and you bankrupts both partners.
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