This includes maintaining a healthy soil ecosystem without depending strongly on fertilizer, micronutrients or chemicals to fight insects or disease. (fooddrink-magazine.com)
The revealed fungus: plant ratio of 17:1, if reflected globally, would extrapolate to at least 6 million fungal species, suggesting in turn that 98 % of fungi have yet to be described — a figure that remains to be corroborated by similarly detailed sampling across a range of other soil ecosystems. (science.sciencemag.org)
Keiluweit, assistant professor in UMass Amherst's School of Earth and Sustainability, says the team's next steps include quantifying the amount of anaerobic microsites in different soil ecosystems and assessing how carbon stabilization in them is affected by variables such as the soil hydrologic regime, which is expected to change dramatically due to climate change. (sciencedaily.com)