Dry Mushrooms Could Slow Global Warming

Meg Hamill — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:59:23 +0000

New research shows that mushrooms feeding on dead vegetation in soils of northern areas like Alaska and Siberia, eat less and produce less harmful carbon dioxide, when temperatures climb.

When researchers from UC Irvine set out to investigate how climate change was affecting carbon dioxide output by fungi in dryer parts of the Northern Hemisphere, they discovered something altogether surprising, and not at all in line with predictions.

Oftentimes mushrooms feed off of dead vegetation in the soil. During this process, they emit carbon dioxide that was being stored in that dead matter, into the atmosphere.

Scientists expected warmer than normal soils to emit larger amounts of carbon dioxide because cold temperatures are believed to slow down the process by which fungi convert soil carbon into carbon dioxide.

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Dry Mushrooms Could Slow Global Warming

New research shows that mushrooms feeding on dead vegetation in soils of northern areas like Alaska and Siberia, eat less and produce less harmful carbon dioxide, when temperatures climb.