*goes and looks it up in my Olympic/Cascade natural history book [1] so I'm not doing this entirely from memory*
Douglas fir also has mycorrhizal relationships with fungi, where the fungi suppress the tree's root hairs (1mm diameter) and sustitute their own (.003mm), providing a much more efficient absorptive surface area, making nitrogen and phosphorous available that the tree would not otherwise be able to access, and in some cases boring into solid rock and providing nutrients that way. The fungi sheaths on the roots can also protect from bacterial infection and parasitic fungi, secreting antibiotics against the one and selective toxins against the other.
The trees, in addition to supplying carbohydrates to the fungi, also provide water during the dry summer months (the trees being more deeply rooted than the fungi network extends). The tree-fungi network also provides carbohydrates to seedlings and saplings that are shaded-out by the adult overstory, keeping them alive until they are big enough to donate carbohydrates in their own turn. There's also a whole class of non-green plants (including some orchids) that never produce carbohydrates of their own, but live off the fungal carbohydrate interchange for their entire life cycle. (Commentary by me: these plants are eerie and cool and I always love spotting one. They're pretty much just a stalk and flowers, and are often a translucent white or red.)
[1] Dave Matthews, Cascade-Olympic Natural History: A Trailside Reference, 2nd edition, 1999.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2023-12-17 09:32 pm (UTC)Douglas fir also has mycorrhizal relationships with fungi, where the fungi suppress the tree's root hairs (1mm diameter) and sustitute their own (.003mm), providing a much more efficient absorptive surface area, making nitrogen and phosphorous available that the tree would not otherwise be able to access, and in some cases boring into solid rock and providing nutrients that way. The fungi sheaths on the roots can also protect from bacterial infection and parasitic fungi, secreting antibiotics against the one and selective toxins against the other.
The trees, in addition to supplying carbohydrates to the fungi, also provide water during the dry summer months (the trees being more deeply rooted than the fungi network extends). The tree-fungi network also provides carbohydrates to seedlings and saplings that are shaded-out by the adult overstory, keeping them alive until they are big enough to donate carbohydrates in their own turn. There's also a whole class of non-green plants (including some orchids) that never produce carbohydrates of their own, but live off the fungal carbohydrate interchange for their entire life cycle. (Commentary by me: these plants are eerie and cool and I always love spotting one. They're pretty much just a stalk and flowers, and are often a translucent white or red.)
[1] Dave Matthews, Cascade-Olympic Natural History: A Trailside Reference, 2nd edition, 1999.