Amsterdam researchers build robot that shows how a fungal network is growing

Fungi and plants depend on each other for their nutrients. Fungi also play a major role in storing CO₂ In the soil. However, much unknown about how fungal networks grow and tackling the ‘trade’ in nutrients.

New research shows three strategies that the fungi use to make the exchange of nutrients run efficiently. Researchers from Physical Research Institute Amolf and VU Amsterdam built a robot for this that can portray the development of fungal networks in space and time. She publish on Wednesday Nature.

Up to 70 percent of the total of carbon in the soil is stored in the large tangle of delicate threads of so -called mycorrhiza gimmels. This makes fungi of great importance for the CO₂-Training of the earth. Mycorrhiza is found all over the world. The fungus grows on carbon from plants and in turn the fungi provide nitrogen and phosphorus to the plant.

“This symbiotic relationship requires a lot from the fungi,” says Toby Kiers, also author of the research and the cyclist at Amolf and professor of evolutionary biology at VU. “They first have to collect nutrients that transport to the plant and only then do they get the nutrient they grow on. Such a supply chain must be efficient, but we had no idea how fungi do that. Fungi have no central nervous system. ”

Microscopic

Fungal networks can also be miles in size, the individual threads are microscopically small and everything is done underground. That makes research complicated. With previous experiments in the lab, only the start and end situation was measured, says Kiers.

Thanks to the new robot, the development of fungal networks can be followed in real time. “In short, he puts 40 fungal networks that grow in a pertologate every two hours under the microscope, 24 hours a day,” says Tom Shimizu, co -author and professor of biophysics at the VU and group leader at Amolf. “With the computer we were then able to simultaneously analyze the development of half a million branches, the architecture of the network.”

With another microscope, where the fungi are placed by a person, specific nodes have been portrayed in more detail. “We zoomed in on the movement of the nutrients within these fungal threads, the behavior of traffic on the road,” says Shimizu. “So little has been investigated for fungi, almost everything we see is a new discovery.”

Fungi appear to be actively looking for places where there are many nutrients. They do not do this through exponential growth, as happens often in nature, but with specialist fungal wires that perform exploratory work. They pull out, and in the wake, branches that are just thick enough develop for transporting, for example, phosphate. In their search, the scouts appear to have a preference for large profit in the future over limited profit in the short term.

The robot also made it visible that two -way traffic takes place within the fungal threads. Carbon – in the form of sugars and fats – wriggles past phosphorus and nitrogen. “That is not going through separate ‘lanes’,” says Kiers. “Imagine it as a chaotic intersection with cars, cyclists and walkers. Surprisingly, nobody clashes. ” To prevent congestion, fungi adjust the speed and in places where many nutrients are needed, they increase the barrels.

Intersections that arise

Furthermore, it appears that the fungal threads work together on the basis of ‘local regulations’. When different threads come across each other, there is an intersection instead of going past each other and transporting everything through their own branches.

“We are only at the start of what is possible with this way of investigating,” says Shimizu. “We are now working on a new version of the robot, which works faster and can visualize 200 networks at the same time. He can also organize the zooming himself, a person is no longer necessary. “

“We have only watched one type of fungus, but there are so many more,” says Kiers. “The soil life is also endlessly diverse, what happens if you add bacteria? Or links several plants to a fungal network? ”

Many questions are also on the relationship between fungi and the co₂Housekeeping of the earth. How do they react to temperature change and other disruptions? Shimizu: “There is an incredible amount of carbon in fungi, but we don’t know what mechanisms are playing at all.”

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