When we think of climate change, we tend to think about greenhouse gases, fossil fuels and pollution.
When we think of climate change, we tend to think about greenhouse gases, fossil fuels and pollution. Most of us don’t think about fungi.
But Kathleen Treseder does. Treseder, an ecologist at the University of California, Irvine, studies how fungi can affect climate and vice-versa.
“Fungi are important to consider,” she says. “They can influence nearly every aspect of ecosystems, especially processes that occur in soils.”
New research from her lab shows that fungi can have different lifestyles in response to climate change. These findings can be incorporated into computational models that simulate ecosystems.
Read more at American Society of Agronomy
Image: Fungi are particularly abundant in northern ecosystems like Alaska, where warming is occurring quickly. (Credit: Kathleen Treseder)
