7/25/2025–|Last update: 17:09 (Mecca time)
A new study indicated that the underground networks of fungi, which support ecosystems on the planet, are deteriorating quickly, and they need urgent measures to preserve them, as there are only 9.5% of the main areas of innate biological diversity within the existing protected areas.
Root fungi are found on the roots of plants, and they help organize the Earth’s climate and their environmental systems, and their complex networks provide plants with basic nutrients, while withdrawing more than 13 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually to the soil, equivalent to a third of global emissions from fossil fuels.
The loss of these environmental systems may lead to a decrease in the rate of carbon absorption, a decrease in crop productivity, and the weakness of the environmental system to withstand in the face of harsh climatic conditions, according to the study.
Scientists from the Underground Network Protection Association (Spun) created the first high -resolution maps of the biological diversity of innate underground ecosystems. The study, published in the “Nature” magazine, found that 90% of the foci of the biological diversity of root fungi fall into unprotected environmental systems.
Dr. Toby Curiz, Executive Director of the Span Foundation, said that these basic fungi “have remained in the dark, despite the extraordinary ways of life on Earth.”
He pointed out that fungi recycle nutrients, store carbon, support the health of the plant, and form the soil. And when we disrupt these vital elements in the ecosystem, the regeneration of the forests slows down, crops fail, and the biological diversity above the ground begins to disintegrate.
450 million years ago, there were no plants on Earth, and thanks to these radical fungal networks, the plants colonized the planet and began to support human life.
“If we have healthy innate networks, we will get larger agricultural productivity, larger and more beautiful flowers, and we can protect plants from pathogens,” Kurers said.
The company “Span” launched this initiative in 2021 in cooperation with several international organizations and researchers from all over the world to draw a map of the non -studied networks of fungi.
Using automated learning techniques on a database containing more than 2.8 billion fungal sequences, samples were taken from 130 countries, scientists were able to predict the diversity of root fungi by one square kilometer across the planet.
The researchers discovered that only 9.5% of these vital foci of innate biological diversity fall within the existing protected areas, revealing huge gaps in the field of preservation.
This research represents the first broad scientific application for the initiative of international mapping, which “goes beyond mere scientific tools, but can contribute to directing the future of environmental preservation,” according to Dr. Michael van Noland, the main researcher in the study.
“Due to the impact of these fungal equals on the health of the ecosystems of the land and their functions, continuing to ignore them may represent a very lost opportunity,” Nolland said, noting that fungi respond negatively to human pressure, and without addressing the possible loss of these vital fungi, we may lose our ability to develop new natural climatic solutions, and as necessary for agricultural productivity and human health.
For her part, Dr. Rebecca Show, the chief scientist in the Global Fund for Nature, said that preserving and protecting innate fungi can help solve some of the greatest challenges the world faces, represented in low biological diversity, climate change, and low food productivity.
The international team “Span” includes more than 400 worlds and 96 underground explorers from 79 countries, and takes samples of the most distant underground environmental systems that are difficult to reach on the face of the earth, including Mongolia, Putan, Pakistan and Ukraine.