As the sprawl of homes begins to dissipate on the outskirts of Tucson, forests of saguaro cacti rise in its place, their arms twisting and twirling as if waving a welcome to the Sonoran desert. Fields of prickly pears and cholla cactuses, blooming creosote bushes and green-limbed palo verde trees spread beneath and between the beckoning icons of the Southwest.
“We look like we’re on a movie set,” said Justin Stewart as he drove into Saguaro National Park, where the towering cacti, many older than the state of Arizona, are the charismatic stars of the scene. But Stewart and his colleague, Jinsu Elhance, weren’t there for the saguaros, but to see some tiny players with big roles growing in the soil beneath them: mycorrhizal fungi.
Though invisible on the surface of the desert, researchers have found in recent decades that mycorrhizal fungi are a vital part of ecosystems around the world.
The fungi form symbiotic relationships with most land plants, forming intimate relationships with root systems in which they trade water and nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus for carbon that they use to grow farther out, expanding the highway delivering nourishment to the plant. It’s a useful system anywhere, but especially in arid deserts like that in Arizona’s Saguaro National Park, where the land can be unforgiving. And the relationship’s benefits spread far beyond deserts, forests and grasslands, as the fungi sequester over 13 billion tons of carbon that could otherwise be warming the climate.
But despite their importance, how mycorrhizal fungi interact in various environments remains largely understudied, particularly in arid regions, where climate change is threatening those systems.
Stewart, an ecologist, and Elhance, a data scientist, are with the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), an organization founded to map mycorrhizal fungi networks. The two arrived in Tucson in mid-March to learn what fungi support saguaros and how they help the cacti remain resilient to climate change and the rapid spread of invasive species.
More of our coverage of the biggest story on the planet: Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s proposed amendment to the budget reconciliation megabill that would mandate the sell-off of two to three million acres of U.S. public lands has been ruled out by the Senate parliamentarian. As the Senate works this week to pass major legislation that would slash taxes, climate programs and government spending, Republicans are poised to include billions of dollars in benefits for the oil and gas industry. As the United Nations climate talks came to a faltering end Thursday in Bonn, Germany, the world’s least developed countries and island nations feared for their future while some rich, developed countries backslid on climate promises and doubled down on fossil fuels.
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