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Toxic air is causing malnutrition in trees
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- Besides affecting human health air pollution is also causing malnutrition in trees by harming a fungi that is important for providing mineral nutrients to tree roots, finds a new study.
- Mycorrhizal fungi is hosted by the trees in their roots to receive nutrients from the soil.
- These fungi provide essential nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium from soil in exchange for carbon from the tree.
- This plant-fungal symbiotic relationship is crucial for the health of the tree.
- However, high levels of the nutrition elements like nitrogen and phosphorus in the mycorrhizae changes them to act as pollutants rather than nutrients, the findings showed.
Falling leaves
- The signs of malnutrition can be seen in the form of discoloured leaves and excessive falling of leaves.
- There is an alarming trend of tree malnutrition across Europe, which leaves forests vulnerable to pests, disease and climate change.
- Processes in soil and roots are often ignored as studying them directly is difficult, but it is crucial for assessing tree functioning.
- The study, published in the Nature, examined 40,000 roots from 13,000 soil samples at 137 forest sites in 20 European countries for a period of 10 years to determine the fungi’s tolerance to pollution.
- The researchers noted that ecosystem changes can negatively affect tree health.
- Further, they found that the characteristics of the tree — species and nutrient status — and the local environmental conditions like the atmospheric pollution and soil variables were the most important predictors of which species of mycorrhizae fungi would be present and their numbers.
- These also proved to have a large impact on the fungi.
- The researchers suggested that the results should be used to design new studies into the link between pollution, soil, mycorrhizae, and tree growth.
Source
The Hindu