Hurricane, fires, earthquakes, floods: these are a few examples of natural disasters we can experience across the world. Although beneficial for maintaining a balance or harmony in the ecosystem, natural disturbances can be detrimental when their frequency and intensity rises. With the alarming increase of natural disturbances across the world, scientists now are highly focus on studying the cause-effect relationships in diverse areas across the world in order to prevent or/and restore these habitats after the pass of these disturbances with the development of new protocol. Therefore, collaborative efforts across the world have focus on the restoration of these lands by direct introduction of new members, but less attention have been giving to the significant applications of microbes to these efforts.
But why microbes? Despite being misjudge as the “bad guys”, they are much more than that. It is estimated that about 39 trillion microbial cells can be found on the human body, and only 1,400 are consider pathogenic. So, imagine the huge number we can find in the world in which only a portion are pathogenic. Many of these microbes can be highly beneficial for the environment, and a great example of this are arbuscular mycorrhizas (AM), which is a fancy name of a type of fungus. AM fungi form a really close linkage with the roots of many plants across the world. This fungus is highly known by its ability to uptake and provide nutrients necessary for plant growth that the plant is not able to reach, while the plant provides the fungus with its food in stressful environment, improving the health of the plant. But what applications do these fungi have in the environment?
Natural disturbances can have detrimental effects in the environment. This is the case of the current pass of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico which caused severe effect on the tropical forests, killing a significant number of trees. Current protocols for the reforestation of these areas are focused on transplanting trees from the greenhouse into the affected area, but there are many factors not being considered such as low nutrients in the soil, exposure to pathogens, and competition with trees that survived the disturbance, which can lead to the death of the new transplanted plants. Therefore, what I have proposed is to improve these reforestation processes by the use of AM fungi before the transplantation to potentially increase their chances of survival after different natural disturbances across the world. Allowing the forests to get by with the help of our little friends (microbes).
Damage caused by Hurricane Maria in a tropical forest in Puerto Rico. Photo: Nicole Colon-Carrion.
Schematic representation AM fungi structures.
Image of AM fungi in the root of a plant.
Comments