Underground fungal networks are nature's hyper-efficient architects

In the vast, unseen world beneath our feet, an ancient network of fungi moves carbon and nutrients across underground highways.

Mycorrhizal fungi form intricate partnerships with plants, exchanging resources in ways that help regulate Earth’s ecosystems and atmosphere.

Despite their vital role, much about the complex underground fungi trade has remained a mystery.

Mystery of fungal networks

Scientists have long known about this relationship but, until now, they didn’t fully understand how fungi construct these expansive and highly efficient supply chains.

New research, published in the journal Nature, reveals the sophisticated strategies fungi use to transport resources underground.

By tracking half a million fungal highways and the movement of nutrients within them, a team of scientists has mapped out how these brainless organisms make trade decisions, build routes, and manage traffic flow.

The findings offer insights into how natural systems have solved logistical problems that humans are only beginning to tackle with artificial intelligence.

Critical role in carbon storage

Mycorrhizal fungi play a crucial role in carbon storage, drawing an estimated 13 billion tons of CO₂ into the soil each year. This is equivalent to about a third of global energy-related emissions.

More than 80% of plant species rely on these fungi to exchange carbon for essential nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen.

Despite their massive impact on the planet, little was known about how fungi coordinate this trade without a central brain or nervous system.

Dynamic adaptation of fungal networks

Using a custom-built imaging robot, a team of 28 international researchers discovered that fungi construct a lace-like mycelial network that moves carbon outward from plant roots in a wave-like pattern.

These networks adapt dynamically, controlling the speed and width of their resource highways to optimize efficiency.

Special exploratory branches that act as microscopic “pathfinders,” reach into new territory, seemingly prioritizing future trade opportunities over immediate short-term gains.

“We’ve been mapping the decentralized decision-making processes of mycorrhizal fungal networks, exposing a hyper-efficient blueprint for an underground supply chain,” said evolutionary biologist Dr. Toby Kiers of Amsterdam’s Vrije Universiteit.

“Humans increasingly rely on AI algorithms to build supply chains that are efficient and resilient. Yet mycorrhizal fungi have been solving these problems for more than 450 million years.”

“This is the kind of research that keeps you up at night because these fungi are such important underground circulatory systems for nutrients and carbon.”

Unlocking fungal secrets with robots

To uncover these hidden fungal behaviors, the team developed an imaging robot that ran continuously in Amsterdam, and allowed them to track how fungi reshaped their trade routes over time and space. This condensed what would have taken a century of human observations into just three years.

“We discovered that these fungi are constantly adapting their trade routes, adding loops to shorten paths so they could efficiently deliver nutrients to plant roots,” said Dr. Thomas Shimizu, an expert at the physics institute AMOLF in Amsterdam.

Like a navigation app tracking real-time congestion, the team measured resource flow across the fungal highways. By analyzing over 100,000 particle flows, they observed how fungi regulated traffic to ensure efficient delivery.

“By using our robot instead of a human being, we cut the lab time from a century to around three years,” Shimizu added.

According to British mycologist Dr. Merlin Sheldrake, robotics is making it possible to study fungal behavior in unprecedented detail, and at an unprecedented scale.

“These techniques open the door to future work to understand the ways that these living, sensing, networks regulate ecosystem function and the Earth’s nutrient cycles,” said Dr. Sheldrake.

Significance of the study

The findings come at a critical time. As CO₂ levels in the atmosphere continue to rise, scientists are eager to understand how fungal networks influence carbon storage underground.

Dr. Kiers, who is also the executive director of the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), emphasized the importance of this work.

“Because these fungal networks are key entry points of carbon into global soils, we can now explore what triggers fungi to increase carbon flows underground,” said Dr. Kiers.

Just like human supply chains, the efficiency of fungal networks depends on how well they transport resources to the right place at the right time, with minimal waste.

“Understanding how these fungal networks adjust internal flows and resource trading to build supply chains in response to environmental stimuli will be an important direction for future research,” said Dr. Howard Stone, professor of mechanical and aserospace engineering at Princeton University.

Future research directions

The research team is already pushing forward with the next phase of their work. They are developing a new robot that will increase data collection tenfold, allowing them to study how fungal networks respond to environmental changes, including disruptions and rising temperatures.

The question now is whether human-designed supply chains can learn from these ancient fungal strategies. For over 450 million years, fungi have been solving logistical challenges that modern industries still struggle with.

As technology advances, nature may yet hold the key to making our own systems more efficient, resilient, and sustainable.

The full study was published in the journal Nature.

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