Roots and Associated Fungi Drive Long-Term Carbon Sequestration in Boreal Forest

• DOI: 10.1126/science.1231923
• Publication Date: 2013-03-28T18:07:11Z
• Authors: K. E. Clemmensen; A. Bahr; O. Ovaskainen; A. Dahlberg; A. Ekblad; H. Wallander; J. Stenlid; R. D. Finlay; D. A. Wardle; B. D. Lindahl
• Keywords: Glucosamine; Fungi; 04 agricultural and veterinary sciences; 15. Life on land; Plant Roots; Carbon Cycle; Trees; Soil; 13. Climate action; Ergosterol; 0401 agriculture, forestry, and fisheries; Carbon Radioisotopes; Biomarkers

Forest Fungi

Boreal forest is one of the world's major biomes, dominating the subarctic northern latitudes of Europe, Asia, and America. The soils of boreal forest function as a net sink in the global carbon cycle and, hitherto, it has been thought that organic matter in this sink primarily accumulates in the form of plant remains.

Clemmensen et al.

(p. 1615 ; see the Perspective by

Treseder and Holden

) now show that most of the stored carbon in boreal forested islands in Sweden is in fact derived from mycorrhizal mycelium rather than from plant litter. Biochemical and sequencing studies show that carbon sequestration is regulated by functional and phylogenetic shifts in the mycorrhizal fungal community. The results will need to be explicitly considered in models of the role of the boreal forest in the global carbon cycle.