11 - Conclusion and Summary

Summary

Now travel back to your nearest nature reserve, but simultaneously look at the adjacent agriculture field or human urban neighborhood. Instead of just looking at what you can readily see, the diverse array of plants and animals; the complex architecture and the smells of the flowers and the diverse array of shapes and colors, double that, or maybe even increase it 10-fold by imagining that it is connected to what you cannot see belowground! Diverse plant and fungal compositions and structures are interconnected through multiple networks transferring resources and chemical signals. They may persist for only a day or even a few minutes, but alternatively maybe for decades, or even centuries. Even observing that part of the ecosystem, whether through minirhizotrons and ground-penetrating radar, or sampling and microscopy, you will only visualize a tiny fragment of that world. In the world of mycorrhizae, imagination may be the single most useful tool!