GHG-R Flagship Destination

The Hidden Sink
Old-growth fungi as a carbon solution

Team: Rob Jackson, Kabir Peay

Scoping: Old-Growth Relics as a Model for Forest Restoration and Natural Climate Solutions - Forests, including their trees and soils, constitute the largest terrestrial carbon sink on Earth. This project aims to increase carbon storage in secondary forests by learning what enables old-growth forests to store large quantities of carbon in their soils. We will identify fungal mutualisms in old-growth forests and develop soil microbiome transplant strategies to increase carbon storage in secondary forests. 

Our approach is to gather and analyze data from hundreds of old-growth forest relics in Sweden and across Scandinavia to compare tree biomass and soil carbon storage. We will characterize the fungal communities across forest ecosystems, correlate our data with high soil carbon sequestration, and develop a library of fungal communities that enhance soil carbon storage. During this one-year project, we will learn which fungal communities to inoculate in secondary forests to increase their potential for soil carbon storage. This natural solution has the potential to remove greenhouse gases at scale while restoring forest biodiversity.