Mycorrhizal Networks
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Mycorrhizal Networks
Mycorrhizal networks are underground systems formed when mycorrhizal fungi associate with plant roots and extend microscopic fungal hyphae through the surrounding soil. When the same fungal system interacts with more than one plant, it can create what researchers call a common mycorrhizal network. These networks can link individuals of the same or different plant species and create pathways through which fungi acquire resources from the soil while exchanging nutrients with their plant partners.
Research stretching back several decades has demonstrated that fungal mycelia can physically connect plants. Experiments using radioactive and stable isotopes have detected movement of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and other substances through systems containing mycorrhizal fungi. Researchers have also found evidence that fungal networks can influence water movement, plant competition, seedling establishment and responses to herbivores and pathogens.
The resulting picture, however, is more complicated than the popular image of a cooperative underground internet in which plants deliberately share resources. Mycorrhizal networks are biological systems involving organisms with their own ecological and evolutionary interests. Transfers can be unequal, fungi can preferentially allocate resources to particular hosts, and access to a network can sometimes increase competition rather than cooperation.
A Vast Underground Fungal Infrastructure
Mycorrhizal fungi form symbiotic relationships with a large proportion of terrestrial plants. Plants provide fungi with carbon compounds produced through photosynthesis, while fungi extend beyond the reach of individual root systems and obtain nutrients and water from the surrounding soil.
The scale of these fungal systems can be enormous. A major global mapping study published in 2026 estimated the distribution and biomass of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal hyphae across Earth's topsoils. By combining thousands of soil observations with fungal measurements and modeling, researchers portrayed mycorrhizal fungi as a vast living underground infrastructure rather than merely organisms attached to individual roots.
This global perspective also gives mycorrhizal networks significance for conservation and climate research. Fungal hyphae participate in nutrient cycling, receive substantial quantities of plant-derived carbon and interact with soil processes that influence carbon storage. Mapping areas with particularly dense fungal networks could therefore help identify underground ecosystems that warrant greater conservation attention.
The physical existence of extensive fungal networks is much less controversial than some claims concerning what plants accomplish through them. A critical distinction in modern research is consequently made between demonstrating fungal connectivity and demonstrating that resources or information passing through those networks produce meaningful benefits for particular plants.
Resource Exchange: Carbon, Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Water
Much of the scientific investigation of common mycorrhizal networks has focused on whether substances can move between plants through shared fungal connections. Experiments using isotopic tracers have documented movement associated with carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and other elements.
Landmark experiments during the 1980s and 1990s helped establish that fungal mycelia could transport resources between spatially separated plants. Later field studies detected belowground carbon movement among trees, including research involving paper birch and Douglas-fir and experiments with mature temperate forests.
Nitrogen transfer has also been repeatedly observed. In agricultural and natural systems, researchers have studied whether nitrogen fixed or acquired by one plant becomes available to neighboring plants through fungal pathways. Results indicate that transfer depends strongly upon species identity, nutrient availability, fungal partners and environmental conditions.
Phosphorus illustrates the economic nature of these relationships particularly well. Mycorrhizal fungi are effective at acquiring phosphorus from soil and exchanging it with plants for carbon. Experimental work suggests fungi can preferentially allocate mineral nutrients toward plants that provide them with greater carbon supplies. Instead of operating as passive pipelines, fungi therefore influence where resources go.
Common networks may also contribute to water redistribution. Experiments have found evidence that water hydraulically lifted from deeper soil layers by established plants can become available through pathways involving mycorrhizal fungi. Such processes could be especially important for seedlings or plants experiencing drought.
Not everything transported by networks is beneficial. Experiments have reported fungal-mediated movement of substances such as cadmium, cesium and other elements. Underground connectivity can therefore redistribute contaminants as well as nutrients.
Plant Signaling, Defense and Competition
One of the most intriguing areas of mycorrhizal-network research concerns the transmission of signals between plants.
Experiments with tomatoes found that plants connected to infected neighbors through common arbuscular mycorrhizal networks activated defensive responses. Other studies reported responses by connected plants after herbivore or aphid attacks. These observations helped inspire descriptions of fungal hyphae as biological information pathways or a fungal "superhighway."
More recent research continues to examine how signaling molecules and changes in surrounding microbial communities may contribute to these effects. Some studies suggest mycorrhizal connections can prime neighboring plants for defense or influence the recruitment of disease-suppressive microorganisms.
These discoveries do not necessarily mean that one plant deliberately warns another. Evolutionary models suggest that neighboring plants might sometimes be "eavesdropping" on chemical information traveling through a shared fungal system. The fungus itself may also influence how signals move.
Competition is equally important. Plants connected through the same fungal network are simultaneously competing for light, water, nutrients and fungal services. Some experiments have found that networks intensify competitive differences, including preferential nutrient allocation toward larger plants capable of supplying fungi with more carbon.
Common mycorrhizal networks should therefore not be understood simply as systems of plant cooperation. Depending upon the species and environmental conditions involved, they can facilitate neighbors, intensify competition or have little measurable effect.
Forest Networks and the "Wood Wide Web"
Forest research helped popularize the idea of the "wood wide web." Studies have demonstrated that fungal genets can connect multiple trees and seedlings and that some large trees occupy highly connected positions within these belowground networks.
Researchers have investigated whether seedlings connected to fungal networks associated with established trees gain advantages in fungal colonization, nutrient acquisition, drought tolerance or survival. In some ecosystems, access to established fungal systems appears to improve seedling establishment, particularly under stressful environmental conditions.
Mycoheterotrophic plants provide another striking example of fungal connectivity. These plants obtain some or all of their carbon through fungal partners rather than relying entirely upon their own photosynthesis. Because the fungi can also associate with photosynthetic plants, mycoheterotrophy demonstrates that carbon can move through underground plant-fungus associations in ecologically significant ways.
Popular accounts have sometimes extended these findings into the idea that large "mother trees" intentionally support seedlings, distribute resources to their offspring or coordinate cooperative forest communities.
Those stronger interpretations remain scientifically contested.
Critics argue that evidence for widespread, ecologically important plant-to-plant carbon transfer is weaker than popular descriptions imply. Detecting carbon from one tree inside fungal tissue associated with another tree does not necessarily demonstrate that the carbon subsequently entered or benefited the second tree.
Other researchers argue that the cumulative evidence for functional mycorrhizal networks is substantial and that skeptical interpretations can themselves understate the experimental evidence.
The resulting debate has helped sharpen an important scientific distinction: fungal networks unquestionably exist, but the ecological consequences of being connected must be demonstrated rather than assumed.
Agriculture and Food Production
Agricultural research increasingly investigates whether common mycorrhizal networks can improve crop productivity and reduce dependence on external fertilizers.
Intercropping experiments involving combinations such as maize and soybean, flax and sorghum, maize and faba bean, millet and chickpea, and other crops have examined fungal contributions to nitrogen and phosphorus acquisition. Some studies report improved nutrient transfer or overyielding when different crop species participate in mycorrhizal associations.
Networks may be particularly useful when plants possess complementary nutrient-acquisition strategies. Nitrogen-fixing legumes, for example, can introduce biologically fixed nitrogen into systems containing neighboring non-leguminous crops. Mycorrhizal fungi may contribute to the movement or redistribution of some of this nitrogen.
Researchers are also exploring whether fungal connections could improve resistance to pathogens and herbivores. If exposure of one plant to disease primes defenses in connected plants, maintaining fungal networks could potentially become part of ecological crop-protection strategies.
Yet agricultural benefits are not guaranteed. Network effects depend on crop species, fungal identity, soil fertility, moisture, nutrient availability and agricultural management. Networks can also strengthen competition between plants.
This context dependence suggests that sustainable agriculture will require more than simply adding mycorrhizal fungi to fields. Management may need to preserve appropriate fungal communities, soil structure and plant diversity while matching fungal partners to particular cropping systems.
Fungi as Active Participants
A major shift in interpreting mycorrhizal networks has been the movement away from thinking of fungi merely as pipes connecting plants.
Fungi are living organisms competing for resources and exchanging nutrients with multiple partners. Biological-market models describe these interactions as exchanges in which plants supply carbon while fungi supply phosphorus, nitrogen and other resources.
Experiments show that both sides can discriminate among partners. Plants can allocate resources toward more beneficial fungi, while fungi can preferentially deliver nutrients to plants providing greater carbon rewards.
This perspective changes the interpretation of plant-to-plant resource movement. Carbon entering a fungus from one plant may become fungal biomass or fuel fungal metabolism rather than being destined for another plant. Similarly, nutrients transported through a fungal network may be allocated according to the fungus's own biological interests.
Common networks are therefore better understood as multi-organism marketplaces and ecological systems than as plant-owned communication cables.
Ecological Context and the Scientific Debate
The history of mycorrhizal-network research demonstrates how a scientifically valid phenomenon can acquire a much broader cultural interpretation.
Evidence that fungi connect plants is extensive. Evidence that substances move through fungal systems is also substantial. The difficult questions concern how much material moves, where it ultimately goes and whether the transfer significantly changes plant survival, reproduction or ecosystem dynamics.
A recent meta-analysis of arbuscular common mycorrhizal-network experiments found that average effects were often small, neutral or inconsistent and strongly dependent upon experimental context. Such findings reinforce the need to distinguish the existence of a network from assumptions about its ecological function.
Carbon transfer has been particularly controversial. Some experiments detect labeled carbon associated with neighboring plants or their fungal partners, while others find carbon in fungal tissue without clear evidence that significant quantities enter the recipient plant itself.
Nitrogen transfer appears in many studies and may in some circumstances be easier to demonstrate than substantial plant-to-plant carbon transfer.
Claims about plant communication require similar care. Plants connected by fungi can show altered defensive responses after neighboring plants are attacked or infected, but describing this phenomenon as intentional communication introduces assumptions that experiments do not establish.
The emerging scientific view is therefore neither that the "wood wide web" is simply a myth nor that forests operate as cooperative societies. Mycorrhizal networks are real and potentially important ecological structures whose functions vary across organisms, environments and spatial scales.
Why Mycorrhizal Networks Matter
Mycorrhizal networks fundamentally expand the scale at which plant-fungus symbiosis operates. A mycorrhizal relationship does not necessarily end at the boundary of a single root system. Fungal hyphae extend into soil, encounter multiple roots, interact with microorganisms and participate in nutrient cycles extending across plant communities.
Their importance reaches from individual plants to ecosystems. Networks can influence nutrient acquisition, plant competition, seedling establishment, drought responses, soil microbial communities and the movement of elements through ecosystems.
They are also relevant to biodiversity. Different fungi associate with different plant species, and fungal-network structure can influence which plants establish or compete successfully. Agricultural conversion and other disturbances can substantially alter fungal diversity and connectivity.
At a planetary scale, the enormous quantity of fungal mycelium in soil means that mycorrhizal fungi constitute a significant component of terrestrial ecosystems. Understanding where these fungi occur and how they respond to climate change, land use and soil disturbance may become increasingly important for ecosystem management and conservation.
Conclusion
Mycorrhizal networks reveal that the underground portions of ecosystems are far more interconnected than roots considered in isolation would suggest. Fungal hyphae form extensive systems linking plants with fungi, nutrients, water, microorganisms and surrounding soils.
Decades of experiments demonstrate that these systems can transport resources and influence interactions among plants. They can contribute to nitrogen and phosphorus acquisition, move water and other substances, affect plant defenses, alter competition and shape seedling establishment.
At the same time, the research cautions against treating every fungal connection as evidence of cooperation. Transfers are frequently asymmetric, fungi actively control resource allocation, plants compete for fungal services, and ecological outcomes vary greatly between systems.
The most useful interpretation of the "wood wide web" is therefore not that forests operate like a benevolent social network. Mycorrhizal networks are dynamic ecological systems in which plants, fungi and other organisms exchange resources, compete, cooperate and respond to changing environmental conditions.
The continuing expansion of experimental research and the emergence of global maps of underground fungal abundance are shifting attention from whether these networks exist to more difficult questions: where they occur, how they function, which organisms benefit from them and how protecting belowground fungal diversity might contribute to healthier forests, farms and ecosystems.
Recent Research and Reviews
Global mapping of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal hyphae estimates an enormous underground infrastructure of living fungal networks and quantifies their biomass across Earth's topsoils.
Reviews the possibility of harnessing plant-to-plant signaling through common mycorrhizal networks to strengthen community-level resistance to pests and pathogens in crops.
Examines how common arbuscular mycorrhizal networks affect phosphorus uptake and biomass production in maize-soybean intercropping systems.
Finds sex-specific and asymmetric nitrogen transfer through common mycorrhizal networks between male and female Populus cathayana under nitrogen limitation.
Shows that common mycorrhizal networks can enhance plant disease resistance partly by altering assembly of the rhizosphere microbiome.
Meta-analysis finds generally small, neutral or inconsistent effects of arbuscular common mycorrhizal networks and stresses strong context dependence and limited experimental evidence.
Reports evidence that common mycorrhizal networks transmit signals associated with virus infection between neighboring grapevines.
Demonstrates that a non-mycorrhizal dark septate endophyte can physically connect sorghum plants, broadening the concept of underground fungal plant networks.
Finds that common mycorrhizal networks improved seedling survival and promoted facilitative interactions among big bluestem plants exposed to drought.
Mycorrhizal networks and symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria jointly increased nitrogen sharing among interconnected plants, illustrating how multiple belowground symbioses can interact.
Uses carbon and nitrogen isotopes across 18 grassland plant species and finds nitrogen transfer far more common than detectable carbon transfer.
Argues that mycoheterotrophic plants provide natural evidence that common mycorrhizal networks can transfer carbon among different plants.
Reviews positive and negative plant-plant interactions mediated by common mycorrhizal networks and their potential applications in sustainable agriculture.
Proposes clearer terminology distinguishing common mycorrhizal networks with continuous hyphal connections from broader forms of fungal networking among plant roots.
Finds carbon from neighboring beech trees in ectomycorrhizal fungal tissue associated with recipient roots but not in the recipient trees themselves.
Responds to recent criticism of common mycorrhizal-network research and reviews evidence for connectivity, resource transfer and ecological effects in forests.
Examines what determines the amount of carbon plants allocate to mycorrhizal fungi and how host, fungal and environmental conditions influence underground carbon investment.
Reviews major research frontiers in mycorrhizal genomics, ecology and agriculture, including nutrient exchange and the extensive fungal systems connecting roots through soil.
Demonstrates photosynthate movement from adult photosynthetic orchids to underground heterotrophic protocorms associated with a common mycorrhizal network.
Investigates gradients of plant suppression mediated by common mycorrhizal networks across ecological groups during vegetation succession.
Finds that common arbuscular mycorrhizal networks transmitted warning signals from Fusarium-infected tomato plants and primed disease resistance in neighboring plants.
Tests whether tree-maintained and crop-associated mycorrhizal mycelia allow maize to acquire nitrogen and phosphorus originating from neighboring agroforestry trees.
Responds to skeptical assessments by arguing that evidence for belowground carbon transfer associated with mycorrhizal networks is substantial and accumulating.
Reviews carbon and nitrogen transfers through common arbuscular mycorrhizal networks and their possible importance for plant coexistence and ecosystem functioning.
Synthesizes hundreds of datasets to estimate how much plant-derived carbon is allocated annually to mycorrhizal fungal mycelium worldwide.
Re-examines the mother-tree hypothesis and concludes that evidence for ecologically important net carbon transfer benefiting recipient seedlings remains insufficient.
Argues that claims about widespread forest networks, resource sharing and mother-tree behavior have often exceeded the strength of available evidence.
Finds evidence that a common arbuscular mycorrhizal network can help interconnected walnut and maize plants cope with limited phosphorus availability.
Measures nitrogen transfer between C3 and C4 plants through common mycorrhizal networks under contrasting levels of soil nitrogen availability.
Reviews how root exudates, volatile compounds and common mycorrhizal networks influence root architecture and belowground interactions among neighboring plants.
Finds that common mycorrhizal networks asymmetrically improved nitrogen and phosphorus acquisition and contributed to overyielding in millet-chickpea mixtures.
Investigates whether multiple fungal species connect roots of showy lady's-slipper orchids and black ash in a Newfoundland forest.
Demonstrates direct zinc transfer between plants through a common mycorrhizal network and distinguishes fungal transport from alternative soil pathways.
Uses quantum-dot-labelled apatite to track phosphorus movement through living mycorrhizal networks and shows that host demand affects fungal allocation strategies.
Comprehensive review of mechanisms, hypotheses, experimental evidence and ecological consequences associated with common mycorrhizal networks.
Finds considerable carbon and nitrogen transfer from peas to cereals through direct root contact but little evidence that mycorrhizae were responsible.
Examines how common mycorrhizal networks influence plant biomass and soil properties under different nitrogen levels in a grassland system.
Shows that effects of ectomycorrhizal networks on tree-seedling establishment depend on species identity and the severity of overstorey mortality.
Finds that short-term nitrogen movement from alfalfa to maize in nitrogen-poor soil depended more strongly on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi than root exudates.
Shows that potato plants connected to pathogen-infected neighbors through common mycorrhizal networks activated jasmonic-acid and ethylene-related defense genes.
Public Science, Debate and Global Significance
Focuses on the conservation implications of identifying global hotspots of dense underground mycorrhizal fungal networks.
Reports the first global quantitative mapping of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal networks and their extraordinary estimated total length.
Accessible explanation of global fungal-network mapping and estimates that mycorrhizal hyphae extend for hundreds of trillions of miles through Earth's soils.
Visual and accessible introduction to the enormous global biomass, length and ecological importance of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal networks.
Summarizes the Science study creating the first global map and biomass estimate for arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal hyphae.
Explains how researchers combined thousands of soil observations, machine learning and fungal imaging to estimate the global extent of underground mycorrhizal networks.
Repository page for the global mycorrhizal-network mapping study, including its methodology, global network estimates and carbon-cycle implications.
Reports evidence that young tropical woody plants may obtain part of their carbon through fungi, potentially helping seedlings survive deeply shaded conditions.
Presents an accessible account of evolutionary research questioning why natural selection would favor plants deliberately warning competitors through fungal networks.
Explores evolutionary models suggesting underground plant communication may be better understood as information eavesdropping than altruistic warning behavior.
Reports experiments finding donor-tree carbon in fungal tissues associated with neighboring trees but not clearly transferred into the neighboring trees themselves.
Examines the dispute among researchers over evidence, citation practices and competing interpretations of common mycorrhizal networks.
Long-form history of how mycorrhizal-network research developed into the cultural idea of cooperative “mother trees” and why that interpretation became controversial.
Explains the argument that plants obtaining carbon from fungi provide unusually direct natural evidence for functional underground plant-fungal networks.
University research article explaining how non-photosynthetic mycoheterotrophic plants illuminate carbon movement through common mycorrhizal networks.
Accessible examination of the scientific evidence behind claims that trees support one another through underground fungal networks.
Summarizes Justine Karst and colleagues' argument that popular claims about trees talking, sharing resources and protecting offspring are not yet securely demonstrated.
Explains the scientific controversy surrounding the wood-wide-web concept and distinguishes fungal connectivity from stronger claims about purposeful tree communication.
Explores research into how climate extremes affect mycorrhizal fungi and why conserving underground fungal networks matters for forests and other ecosystems.
Discusses mycorrhizal fungi associated with California oak woodlands and how fungal communities may buffer or respond to climate change.
Carbon, Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Water Transfer
Demonstrates that common mycorrhizal connections can transfer cadmium between maize and soybean, showing that fungal networks can also redistribute contaminants.
Uses carbon-13 labeling and DNA stable-isotope probing to identify ectomycorrhizal fungi associated with belowground carbon transfer between pine and oak trees.
Finds strongly asymmetric belowground carbon transfer among several Mediterranean tree species, with different species acting as stronger donors or recipients.
Finds asymmetric potassium transfer through common mycorrhizal networks in an agricultural intercropping system.
Reports that common mycorrhizal networks contributed to phosphorus uptake and overyielding in faba bean-coix intercropping.
Shows that trees sharing more ectomycorrhizal fungal species tended to exchange more labeled carbon in a mature mixed forest.
Uses nitrogen-15 to show that nitrogen transfer between connected plants varies with receiver species and plant biomass.
Canopy-scale isotope labeling detected substantial belowground carbon movement among mature spruce, beech, larch and pine in a temperate forest.
Examines phosphorus acquisition and phosphate-transporter expression in flax and sorghum connected through common mycorrhizal networks.
Shows that fungi preferentially allocate nitrogen and phosphorus toward host plants supplying them with more carbon, supporting biological-market models.
Finds that established plants connected to seedlings through arbuscular networks can intensify competition for phosphorus rather than simply facilitate growth.
Finds highly unequal terms of trade when flax and sorghum share common arbuscular mycorrhizal networks.
Reports belowground carbon movement among dwarf birch plants in Arctic tundra and examines whether transfer increases under warming.
Finds evidence for redistribution of water from mature ponderosa pine to seedlings through an ectomycorrhizal pathway.
Presents evidence that mycorrhizal networks can provide a pathway for movement of hydraulically lifted water between plants.
Uses nitrogen-15 to investigate net nitrogen transfer between Casuarina and Eucalyptus connected by the ectomycorrhizal fungus Pisolithus.
Critically examines the magnitude and ecological significance of carbon transfer and cautions against automatically interpreting fungal carbon movement as plant resource sharing.
Quantifies carbon movement between plants connected by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and develops a fungus-centered interpretation of the transfer.
Landmark field experiment detected bidirectional carbon transfer between paper birch and Douglas-fir associated with ectomycorrhizal connections.
Uses natural carbon-isotope differences between C3 and C4 plants to quantify carbon movement through a shared arbuscular mycorrhizal system.
Foundational Carbon, Nitrogen and Phosphorus Transfer Experiments
Demonstrates movement of radioactive cesium between Medicago plants linked by a common arbuscular mycorrhizal network.
Shows that soil disturbance alters net carbon transfer between Douglas-fir seedlings potentially interconnected by ectomycorrhizal fungi.
Investigates nitrogen transfer from a tropical legume tree to neighboring fodder grass through root exudation and common fungal networks.
Finds donor carbon in fungal structures inside receiver roots but almost none in receiver plant compounds, distinguishing fungal carbon movement from plant-to-plant transfer.
Finds that carbon entering an arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus was not subsequently transferred into another plant root, challenging simple plant-sharing interpretations.
Tests the idea of mutual aid through common mycorrhizal networks and finds established vegetation can eliminate supposed benefits to seedlings.
Tests whether carbon-14-labelled photosynthetic products move between Japanese red pine seedlings connected by ectomycorrhizal mycelia.
Develops an evolutionary interpretation of common mycorrhizal networks and asks when resource movement through shared fungi should benefit plants or fungi.
Uses reciprocal isotope labeling to quantify bidirectional carbon movement between ectomycorrhizal paper birch and Douglas-fir seedlings.
Measures nitrogen and phosphorus transfer from intact or decomposing pea roots to barley connected through an arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus.
Uses carbon-14 labeling to examine how clipping, fungal treatment and plant genotype affect carbon movement between mycorrhizal plants.
Demonstrates nitrogen translocation between alder and pine seedlings connected by a shared ectomycorrhizal mycelium.
Compares phosphorus and nitrogen transfer between plants differing in phosphorus status to determine how nutrient demand influences underground resource movement.
Tests how vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizas alter competition and establishment of seedlings growing near larger established plants.
Examines ectomycorrhizal mediation of competition among conifer species and helped establish fungi as active participants in plant competitive interactions.
Provides early experimental evidence for underground nitrogen transfer between pasture plants colonized by vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.
Classic experiment demonstrates translocation of carbon-14-labelled photosynthate between plants interconnected by a continuous ectomycorrhizal mycelium.
Companion experiment investigates phosphorus uptake and redistribution by fungal strands connecting separate ectomycorrhizal host plants.
Tests nutrient transfer through vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi among plants belonging to both the same and different species.
Early isotope experiment reports enhanced nitrogen transfer from soybean to maize when the plants were colonized by vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.
Agricultural and Nutrient-Transfer Networks
Uses nitrogen-15 pulse-chase labeling to demonstrate belowground nitrogen movement from oak seedlings that facilitates growth of neighboring Molinia grass.
Finds that arbuscular mycorrhizal inoculation creates asymmetric facilitation and contributes to overyielding in maize-faba bean intercropping.
Reviews interactions among arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, plants, microbes and organic soil nitrogen within belowground nutrient networks.
Shows improved finger-millet nutrition in pigeon-pea intercropping through fungal-mediated biofertilization and redistribution of water and nutrients.
Reports that nurse plants transfer more nitrogen to distantly related neighboring species, potentially helping explain facilitation in stressful environments.
Reports enhanced transfer of biologically fixed nitrogen from faba bean to intercropped wheat when plants participate in mycorrhizal symbiosis.
Shows that nodulation and mycorrhizal networks regulate carbon and nitrogen allocation within soybean-maize intercropping systems.
- | Alicia Montesinos-Navarro et al. | Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics | 2016
Finds that soil fungi promote nitrogen transfer among plant species engaged in long-lasting facilitative interactions.
Reviews the role of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in plant nitrogen uptake and identifies unresolved questions concerning fungal nitrogen transport.
Finds that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and rhizobia facilitate nitrogen acquisition and transfer in soybean-maize intercropping systems.
Finds that soil-animal grazing on arbuscular fungal hyphae alters nutrient allocation within the plant-fungus system.
Examines barley-pea intercropping and its effects on productivity and carbon and nitrogen transformations relevant to belowground facilitation.
Measures nitrogen movement from forage legumes to nine neighboring plant species in diverse grassland communities.
Shows that carbon availability stimulates fungal nitrogen uptake and transport, linking host carbon supply to nutrient allocation by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.
Shows that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi can obtain substantial nitrogen from organic material, revealing an important mechanism behind fungal nutrient redistribution.
Reviews the nutritional ecology of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and how their external mycelium acquires and redistributes nutrients through soil.
Advocates a fungus-centered interpretation in which connected plants function as resource islands and storage units within larger arbuscular fungal networks.
Evaluates nitrogen-15 isotope methods for quantifying nitrogen movement between plants linked by common mycorrhizal fungi.
Demonstrates hyphal-mediated movement of nitrate, arsenic, cesium, rubidium and strontium between mycorrhizal forbs and grasses in California oak woodland soil.
Uses natural nitrogen-15 abundance to investigate nitrogen transfer among crop and weed species growing together.
Communication, Defense, Competition and Agriculture
Discusses evidence that jasmonic acid can move through mycorrhizal networks and alter recruitment of disease-suppressive microbes around neighboring plants.
Reviews evidence that non-host and nominally non-mycorrhizal plants can nevertheless interact with fungal networks supported by neighboring host plants.
Examines whether agricultural, forestry and restoration practices could be designed to maintain or manipulate common mycorrhizal networks.
Reviews mechanisms by which arbuscular common mycorrhizal networks may affect nutrient transfer, water movement and interactions among neighboring plants.
Examines how mycorrhizae affect nitrogen transfer between associated plants and alter the competitive balance between connected hosts.
Accessible review of the “wood wide web,” emphasizing fungal-mediated nutrient movement, signaling and possible implications for forest regeneration.
Reviews nutrient exchange in arbuscular mycorrhizas using biological-market theory and extends the framework from individual roots to common fungal networks.
Finds that common mycorrhizal networks can preferentially allocate mineral nutrients toward larger carbon-rich host plants, amplifying competitive asymmetry.
Examines regulation of plant phosphate uptake in common mycorrhizal networks and the possible role of fungal phosphate transporters.
Reviews resource transfer, defensive signaling and allelochemical movement through mycorrhizal networks as components of complex plant-community behavior.
Reviews experimental evidence for interplant signaling through fungal hyphal networks and discusses possible ecological mechanisms.
Shows that herbivore-induced defensive signals can move between tomato plants associated with a common mycorrhizal network.
Finds that mycorrhizal hyphae can increase movement and biological effects of the allelochemical juglone in soil.
Reviews how and why common fungal networks might help plants mount defensive responses against herbivores and pathogens.
Examines the speed at which aphid-induced signals appear to move between plants through common fungal networks.
Reports that broad bean plants connected through common mycelial networks responded to warning signals generated by aphid attack on neighboring plants.
Introduces the “fungal superhighway” hypothesis in which mycorrhizal hyphae extend the effective range of chemical signals moving through soil.
Finds that pathogen infection in one tomato plant can trigger defense responses in neighboring tomatoes connected by an arbuscular mycorrhizal network.
Seedlings, Competition and Forest Community Networks
Examines how soil fungal interaction networks modify density-dependent seedling survival and growth in diverse plant communities.
Compares establishment of arbuscular- and ectomycorrhizal hardwood seedlings within plantations and explores how existing fungal communities shape recruitment.
Reviews how different types of mycorrhizal association influence plant populations, coexistence, competition and the assembly of ecological communities.
Reviews plants capable of associating with more than one mycorrhizal type and considers how these flexible partnerships affect ecosystem connectivity.
Examines how atmospheric nitrogen deposition and phosphorus enrichment alter arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi associated with Chinese fir.
Finds that forest-edge proximity strongly affects ectomycorrhizas and tree-seedling establishment, highlighting landscape controls on belowground fungal connectivity.
Tests how fungal-network connections, reduced water availability and neighboring species jointly affect establishment of two woodland wildflowers.
Demonstrates that arbuscular common mycorrhizal networks modify both within-species and between-species interactions among two prairie grasses.
Shows that mycorrhizal fungal communities influence the direction and strength of plant-soil feedback differently for arbuscular and ectomycorrhizal plants.
Shows that access to an established common mycorrhizal network allows young plants to acquire fungal partners more rapidly.
Concise perspective describes the ecological importance of underground fungal networking and the movement of resources among roots, fungi and soil.
Compares tree-fungus network topology in dry and moist Douglas-fir forests and shows that network structure changes with ecological conditions.
Tests whether nitrogen movement between plants increases when interconnected species use contrasting nutrient-acquisition strategies.
Finds that defoliation of Douglas-fir can trigger carbon transfer and stress signaling toward neighboring ponderosa pine through ectomycorrhizal networks.
Uses high-throughput sequencing to map connections between plant-root communities and their associated fungi in belowground ecological networks.
Finds that ectomycorrhizal networks associated with established Douglas-fir can facilitate conspecific seedling establishment during drought.
Finds that greater mycorrhizal fungal identity and diversity can reduce the intensity of plant-plant competition.
Finds that mycorrhizal network connections can counteract negative competitive effects of adult canopy trees on seedling survival.
Investigates complex interactions between a legume and neighboring grasses in a subalpine meadow, including belowground nutrient-mediated facilitation.
Proposes that common ectomycorrhizal networks may contribute to persistent dominance by a single tree species in tropical rainforest.
Forest Networks, Architecture and Mycoheterotrophy
Broad review introducing the “wood wide web,” common mycorrhizal networks and their proposed roles in plant communication and ecosystem functioning.
Maps the interaction network between 20 Mediterranean orchid species and their fungal partners, finding strong compartmentalization and fungal specialization.
Comprehensive review of mycorrhizal-network mechanisms, spatial structure, resource movement, ecological consequences and mathematical modeling.
Tests whether benefits of access to common mycorrhizal networks increase for Douglas-fir seedlings exposed to soil-moisture stress.
Reviews molecular mechanisms underlying beneficial plant-fungus interactions and resource exchange within mycorrhizal symbioses.
Reviews ectomycorrhizal communities as drivers of forest carbon cycling, nutrient mobilization and common fungal networks linking trees.
Reviews the proposed role of mycorrhizal networks in regeneration, spatial organization and stability of interior Douglas-fir forests.
Maps Rhizopogon fungal genets linking multiple generations of Douglas-fir and finds highly connected large trees occupying central positions in the network.
Tests whether seedlings with access to established tree roots and fungal networks gain survival or resource-transfer advantages.
Reviews mycoheterotrophic plants that acquire carbon through fungi connected to photosynthetic plants, providing a striking example of network-mediated nutrition.
Investigates how access to established fungal networks and proximity to mature trees affect ectomycorrhizal colonization of planted seedlings.
Reviews dozens of studies and concludes that mycorrhizal networks can facilitate plants in some situations but produce neutral or negative effects in others.
Shows that ectomycorrhizal networks associated with nurse plants can strongly influence seedling establishment during early primary succession.
Reviews common mycorrhizal networks as potentially beneficial, competitive or exploitative interactions rather than inherently cooperative systems.
Examines self-recognition, hyphal fusion and incompatibility mechanisms that determine how large arbuscular fungal networks can form underground.
Discusses common fungal networks as potential lifelines for seedlings and mycoheterotrophic plants while emphasizing the difficulty of proving ecological effects.
Applies network theory to fungal-plant connections in oak woodland and explores whether certain fungal genets function as highly connected network hubs.
Foundational review assessing the extent, functions, ecological effects and methodological challenges involved in studying common mycorrhizal networks.
Famous “wood-wide web” correspondence finds much lower arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal diversity in agricultural land than in woodland.
Early foundational review assessing evidence that mycorrhizal fungi link neighboring plants and considering possible effects on nutrient cycling and community structure.
Network Economics, Fungal Behavior and Symbiotic Mechanisms
Reviews sugar transport and signaling in plant-microbe interactions, including carbon flows that support mycorrhizal fungi and their external mycelia.
Reconstructs the evolutionary history and global diversity of mycorrhizal symbioses, providing context for how underground fungal partnerships became widespread.
Reviews molecular mechanisms controlling nutrient exchange between plants and arbuscular fungi, including carbon, phosphorus and nitrogen transport.
Demonstrates transfer of plant-produced lipids to arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, revealing a fundamental carbon pathway sustaining fungal mycelial networks.
Identifies plant lipid-biosynthesis enzymes required for successful arbuscular mycorrhizal development and carbon provisioning to fungal partners.
Investigates compatibility and incompatibility during hyphal anastomosis among arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, an important constraint on formation of integrated networks.
Examines how participation in common mycorrhizal networks changes the bargaining power of fungi exchanging mineral nutrients for plant carbon.
Reviews biological regulation of resource exchange between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and explains why exchange is often highly asymmetric.
Examines partner selection in mycorrhizal mutualism and how preferential resource allocation can stabilize cooperation between plants and fungi.
Shows how phosphate and ammonium transport mechanisms regulate maintenance and degeneration of nutrient-exchange structures in arbuscular mycorrhizal roots.
Demonstrates reciprocal rewards in mycorrhizal symbiosis, showing that plants and fungi preferentially allocate resources toward more cooperative partners.
Connects plant-community theory with interactions involving soil microbes and mycorrhizal fungi, explaining how fungal feedbacks can shape plant coexistence.
Reviews green plants that obtain part of their carbon through mycorrhizal fungi rather than relying exclusively on photosynthesis.
Reviews the diversity of nutritional strategies used by vascular plants and places mycorrhizal and mycoheterotrophic relationships in a broad ecological framework.
Shows that grazing by soil organisms alters fungal network architecture during interactions between competing fungal mycelia.
Demonstrates partial mycoheterotrophy in the orchid Corallorhiza trifida, which obtains carbon through its ectomycorrhizal fungal partners.
Shows that the poorly photosynthetic orchid Limodorum abortivum associates specifically with ectomycorrhizal Russulaceae capable of linking it to surrounding vegetation.
Reveals nonphotosynthetic plants specialized on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, demonstrating that plants can exploit carbon pathways embedded in fungal symbioses.
Demonstrates hyphal fusion and nuclear exchange in intact arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal networks, revealing mechanisms by which continuous mycelial systems form.
Influential review argues that mycorrhizas must be understood at ecosystem scale because fungal mycelia connect plant nutrition with broader soil processes.
