Report: Mushrooms May Slow Warming in Northern Forests

In a surprise finding, scientists report that as soil temperatures rise in northern forests, fungi there release less — not more — carbon dioxide. That’s a spot of good news in the global climate-change picture, where warming often causes further warming. In the case of the mushrooms, researchers at the University of California-Irvine examined spruce forests in Alaska, Canada, and Scandinavia. As the soil warmed up, they expected it to emit more CO2. Instead, they found, the fungi that feed on dead plant matter dried out and released less carbon dioxide. “We don’t get a vicious cycle of warming in dry, boreal forests,” noted UC-Irvine’s Steve Allison, lead author of the study, which appears in Global Change Biology. “The Earth’s natural processes could give us some time to implement responsible policies to counteract warming globally.”