A historical publication has been published in the scientific journal Science: an international team of scientists presented the first-ever detailed map of an all-planetary network of arbucular mycorrhizal fungi, which surround soils on all continents.

The scale of the phenomenon is mind-boggling. The total length of the microscopic guif reaches 110 quadrillion kilometers. If this figure is translated into astronomical units of measurement, the result would be approximately 12,000 light-years - almost a billion times the distance from our planet to the Sun. For reference: the galaxy transverse Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years old, so a mushroom could occupy about one-tenth of the galactic disk and reach the stellar supercluster Westerlund 1.

The total weight of this unseen infrastructure underground is estimated at 300 megatons - 4-6 times more than all inhabitants of the earth combined.

The study was based on an analysis of 16,000 soil samples from 300 independent scientific sources. Using machine learning algorithms, specialists were able to simulate the distribution of fungal networks with a link to each square kilometer of the planet’s surface.

It was found that almost 40% of all fungal biomass is concentrated in the mountainous massifs and humid lowlands: the marshy Everglades (Florida), the high mountains of Tibet, and the swampy savannahs of southern Sudan.

The scientific work clearly demonstrated the critical importance of fungi for terrestrial flora: approximately 70% of plants are not able to fully absorb phosphorus and nitrogen from the soil without symbiosis with mycorrhizal nets. However, in arable land the concentration of giff was twice as low compared to whole areas, which indicates the negative impact of agriculture on underground ecosystems.