The Underground Network That Holds Everything Together
Original Article: Five Things You Didn’t Know About Our Underground Fungi
Author: Adam Frew, Research Fellow in Ecology, Charles Sturt University
Published: 31st March 2025
This is a personal overview of the article. To dive deeper, I highly recommend reading the original in full.
This article is about one of the most important research projects being carried out in the fungi world today. It highlights a type of fungi that quietly supports almost all plant life, yet it is only just starting to come into the spotlight.
These aren’t mushrooms you’d spot on a forest walk, they are microscopic, thread-like mycelium that weave through plant roots, trading nutrients and water for sugars. Known as Arbuscular Mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, they form one of the oldest and most widespread symbiotic relationships on Earth. Over 80% of all plant species depend on them
Globally, AM fungi are being studied for their role in everything from drought resilience to soil regeneration and carbon storage. Europe, North America, and parts of Asia have made significant progress in mapping species and understanding how mycelium influences ecosystems and agriculture. In the UK, research has looked at how AM fungi interact with native plants, farming practices, and even grassland restoration.
In Australia, where soils are some of the oldest and most nutrient-poor in the world, this vital fungal network has gone largely untracked. That’s what makes this study so important. The article introduces AusAMF, the first nationwide database dedicated to identifying and mapping AM fungi across Australia. It’s a major step towards understanding the health of fungal communities and the ecosystems they support.
In my view, this kind of work deserves far more attention. Fungi is key to biodiversity, climate resilience, and future food systems. If they’re in trouble, we need to know and we need to act.
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