An Arctic Road Trip Brings Vital Underground Networks into View
Biologists hammer a steel tube into the ground to collect a soil sample.
生物学家将一根钢管敲入地下以收集土壤样本。
Dozens of such samples taken from northern Alaska will reveal whether this place is a global hot spot of rare species of mycorrhizal fungi.
从阿拉斯加北部采集的数十个此类样本将揭示这个地方是否是全球稀有菌根真菌的热点地区。
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
这个故事得到了普利策中心的支持。
O ne Tuesday in June 2025, a white Chevy Suburban set off down the northernmost highway in North America.
2025 年 6 月的一个星期二，一辆白色雪佛兰 Suburban 沿着北美最北端的高速公路出发。
The sun of Alaska’s polar summer hadn’t set in 40 days, and it wouldn’t set again for another 35.
阿拉斯加极地夏季的太阳已经有 40 天没有落山了，而且还有 35 天不会再次落山。
But for Michael Van Nuland, the biologist in the driver’s seat, time was already running out.
但对于坐在驾驶座上的生物学家迈克尔·范·努兰德来说，时间已经不多了。
The SUV, packed with four days of fieldwork essentials — rubber boots for mucking in marshes, GPS for centimeter-level precision, a steel tube for extracting soil cores from permafrost — growled along the Dalton Highway, which sews an asphalt-and-gravel seam through the tundra of Alaska’s northern coast.
这辆 SUV 装满了四天野外作业的必需品——用于在沼泽中挖土的橡胶靴、厘米级精度的 GPS、用于从永久冻土中提取土芯的钢管——沿着道尔顿高速公路咆哮，这条高速公路穿过阿拉斯加北部海岸的苔原，缝上一条沥青和砾石接缝。
Through the window, the lack of visible trees suggested a barren landscape, but looks are deceiving.
透过窗户，看不见的树木暗示着一片贫瘠的风景，但外表是骗人的。
The miles of sedge and duvet-thick moss formed the basis of a feast for seasonal caribou, grizzlies, muskox, and roughly 200 bird species.
绵延数英里的莎草和羽绒被厚的苔藓构成了季节性驯鹿、灰熊、麝牛和大约 200 种鸟类盛宴的基础。
Van Nuland was more interested in what was happening underground, where sprawling systems of fungal threads — from microscopic ducts to arteries thick as yarn — extended dozens of feet horizontally in all directions.
范·纽兰对地下发生的事情更感兴趣，地下蔓延的真菌丝系统——从微小的管道到粗如纱线的动脉——向各个方向水平延伸了数十英尺。
By connecting plant roots and circulating nutrients, this dense, networked scaffold sustained life above the surface.
通过连接植物根部和循环养分，这种致密的网络支架维持了地表以上的生命。
Mycorrhizal fungi grow densely on beech roots.
山毛榉根部密生菌根真菌。
In the late 19th century, botanists assumed that these fungal networks were infectious parasites.
19 世纪末，植物学家认为这些真菌网络是传染性寄生虫。
“People couldn’t believe that these fungi were actually penetrating into plant cells and not taking something,” said the evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers.
进化生物学家托比·基尔斯（Toby Kiers）说：“人们无法相信这些真菌实际上已经渗透到植物细胞中，并且没有吸收任何东西。”
“Some people just see dirt as dirt.
“有些人只是将污垢视为污垢。
But it’s a living, breathing system,” said Van Nuland , the lead data scientist of the nonprofit Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN).
但这是一个活生生的、会呼吸的系统。”非营利性地下网络保护协会 (SPUN) 的首席数据科学家 Van Nuland 说道。
“The complexity you see in a forest — the layers of canopy, the different species of birds and insects …
“你在森林中看到的复杂性——树冠层、不同种类的鸟类和昆虫……
You’re walking over an equally or possibly even more complex system below ground.”
你正在走过一个同样甚至可能更复杂的地下系统。”
This system’s architect was the subject of Van Nuland’s study: mycorrhizal fungi, a group of evolutionarily far-flung, soil-dwelling microbes whose ever-growing appendages extract nutrients and water from their surroundings.
该系统的设计者是范·努兰研究的对象：菌根真菌，一群进化范围广泛的土壤微生物，它们不断生长的附属物从周围环境中吸取营养和水分。
Those surroundings include nearby plants.
这些周围环境包括附近的植物。
The fungi’s pale, thread-like “hyphae” burrow through the soil until they find plant roots to connect with.
真菌的浅色线状“菌丝”在土壤中挖洞，直到找到可以连接的植物根部。
Then, the parties can trade.
然后，双方就可以进行交易。
From the fungus, the plant accepts scarce nitrogen and phosphorus that its own roots struggle to reach; the fungus takes the plant’s carbon to further grow and colonize the soil.
植物从真菌中吸收稀缺的氮和磷，而它自己的根部很难到达这些氮和磷。真菌吸收植物的碳来进一步生长并在土壤中定居。
Across the century since their discovery, mycorrhizal fungi have been considered parasites of plant roots and, later, passive infrastructure that served plants’ interests.
自发现以来的整个世纪里，菌根真菌一直被认为是植物根部的寄生虫，后来又被认为是为植物利益服务的被动基础设施。
But studies from this decade that used advanced techniques in robotics and imaging suggest that they are active merchants that control their fates and influence the fates of others.
但近十年来使用机器人和成像先进技术的研究表明，他们是活跃的商人，控制自己的命运并影响他人的命运。
The expedition’s cast of intrepid biologists.
此次探险队由勇敢的生物学家组成。
Clockwise from top left: Michael Van Nuland, Kelcie Walther, Jinsu Elhance, and Mario Muscarella.
从左上角顺时针方向：Michael Van Nuland、Kelcie Walther、Jinsu Elhance 和 Mario Muscarella。
The expedition’s cast of intrepid biologists.
此次探险队由勇敢的生物学家组成。
From left: Michael Van Nuland, Kelcie Walther, Mario Muscarella, and Jinsu Elhance.
左起：Michael Van Nuland、Kelcie Walther、Mario Muscarella 和 Jinsu Elhance。
“You can think of fungi as sort of farming plants above ground,” said Toby Kiers , an evolutionary biologist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the chief scientist and director of SPUN, which she co-founded in 2021.
阿姆斯特丹自由大学的进化生物学家、SPUN 的首席科学家兼主任托比·基尔斯 (Toby Kiers) 说：“你可以将真菌视为地面上的农作物。”她于 2021 年与他人共同创立了 SPUN。
Mycorrhizal fungi direct traffic through nutrient superhighways and restructure the soil to support life across entire ecosystems.
菌根真菌通过营养高速公路引导交通，并重组土壤以支持整个生态系统的生命。
Now, “we see fungi more as really important actors in their own right,” Kiers said.
现在，“我们更多地认为真菌本身就是非常重要的角色，”基尔斯说。
“It’s flipping the way that we understand the underground.”
“它正在颠覆我们理解地下世界的方式。”
As fungal networks come into focus, one thing that remains little known, especially in comparison with our understanding of plants and animals, is their global biodiversity and biogeography.
随着真菌网络成为人们关注的焦点，人们仍然鲜为人知的一件事是它们的全球生物多样性和生物地理学，特别是与我们对植物和动物的了解相比。
There are likely between 20,000 and 50,000 species of mycorrhizal fungi, each with its own tricks for tapping into different plants and harvesting nutrients using enzymes, acids, and water-mining structures.
菌根真菌可能有 20,000 到 50,000 种，每种菌根真菌都有自己的技巧来利用不同的植物并利用酶、酸和水开采结构收获营养。
To address this gap, in a model published in Nature in 2025 , Van Nuland and his colleagues had used machine learning to process 25,000 soil samples from around the world, producing more than 2.8 billion fungal DNA sequences.
为了解决这一差距，在 2025 年《自然》杂志上发表的模型中，Van Nuland 和他的同事使用机器学习处理了来自世界各地的 25,000 个土壤样本，产生了超过 28 亿个真菌 DNA 序列。
They used the data to predict the locations of mycorrhizal “hot spots” — places with both high diversity and rarity of species.
他们利用这些数据来预测菌根“热点”的位置——物种多样性高且稀有的地方。
That model is what drew Van Nuland to the Arctic.
正是这种模式吸引了范努兰来到北极。
According to the analysis, this stretch of Alaskan tundra, sandwiched between the Prudhoe Bay oil fields and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, is likely a mycorrhizal hot spot.
根据分析，夹在普拉德霍湾油田和北极国家野生动物保护区之间的这片阿拉斯加苔原很可能是菌根热点。
So Van Nuland brought a team of researchers to sample soil across the region; he and other SPUN researchers will sample more predicted hotspots around the world, including tropical islands, dense forests, and mountains.
因此，范·纽兰带领一组研究人员对该地区的土壤进行了采样；他和其他 SPUN 研究人员将对世界各地更多预测的热点地区进行采样，包括热带岛屿、茂密的森林和山脉。
If these sites harbor rare, unique soil fungi, then each scoop of dirt could reveal new species.
如果这些地方蕴藏着稀有、独特的土壤真菌，那么每一勺泥土都可能揭示出新的物种。
A machine-learning algorithm trained on 25,000 geolocated soil samples (right) predicted that the tundra of northern Alaska (left) was a hot spot for rare fungal species.
对 25,000 个地理定位土壤样本（右）进行训练的机器学习算法预测，阿拉斯加北部的苔原（左）是稀有真菌物种的热点地区。
The group’s findings could have global significance.
该小组的发现可能具有全球意义。
Every year, the scraggles of mycorrhizal fungi store the equivalent of more than one-third of global carbon emissions .
每年，菌根真菌的碎片储存的碳相当于全球三分之一以上的碳排放量。
Northern permafrost, including in the Alaskan tundra, locks roughly 1 trillion metric tons of carbon in its top three meters of soil — about 10 times the amount of carbon in the entire Amazon rainforest, above and below the surface.
包括阿拉斯加苔原在内的北部永久冻土层在其表层三米土壤中锁住了大约 1 万亿吨碳——大约是整个亚马逊雨林地表以上和以下碳含量的 10 倍。
Therefore, protection of these vast fungal networks is a key tool for resisting climate change.
因此，保护这些巨大的真菌网络是抵御气候变化的关键工具。
“In the past we’ve really neglected to map, monitor, and protect fungal systems,” Kiers said, “and now that’s changing.”
“过去我们确实忽视了绘制、监测和保护真菌系统，”基尔斯说，“现在这种情况正在改变。”
But our recognition of mycorrhizae comes late.
但我们对菌根的认识来得很晚。
Climate change is already destabilizing this area.
气候变化已经破坏了该地区的稳定。
Fungal communities respond to warmer temperatures, increasing moisture, a growing frequency and intensity in wildfires, and thawing permafrost.
真菌群落对气温升高、湿度增加、野火频率和强度增加以及永久冻土融化做出反应。
Less than 10% of SPUN’s predicted mycorrhizal hot spots fall within protected land, and even protected land is not beyond the reach of climate change.
SPUN 预测的菌根热点中只有不到 10% 位于受保护土地内，甚至受保护土地也并非气候变化无法触及的范围。
To carve out space for soil fungi in protection efforts, he must gather more evidence for his model on the ground and identify rare species that will be affected.
为了在保护工作中为土壤真菌开辟空间，他必须为他的地面模型收集更多证据，并确定将受到影响的稀有物种。
That’s why Van Nuland and other researchers have been racing to sample hot spots of mycorrhizal fungi across the world.
这就是为什么范纽兰和其他研究人员一直在世界各地竞相采样菌根真菌的热点地区。
Without knowing which mycorrhizal characters shoulder our carbon burden, he fears, we will fail to protect them and, as a consequence, ourselves.
他担心，如果不知道哪些菌根特征承担了我们的碳负担，我们将无法保护它们，从而保护我们自己。
As they venture to remote places, the scientists are discovering surprising ways in which underground wisps of fungi dictate the future of life aboveground.
当科学家们冒险前往偏远地区时，他们发现了地下真菌以令人惊讶的方式决定了地上生命的未来。
After pulling off the 414-mile Dalton Highway, which was built in 1974 to supply the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, the research team hikes roughly half a mile to a sample site.
研究小组从 1974 年为供应横贯阿拉斯加管道的 414 英里长的道尔顿高速公路驶下后，徒步大约半英里到达了一个样本点。
I joined the SPUN team in Deadhorse, an oilfield-support town on the northern coast of Alaska’s North Slope, at 6 a.m.
早上 6 点，我加入了位于阿拉斯加北坡北海岸的油田支援小镇 Deadhorse 的 SPUN 团队。
on day three of a four-day, 150-mile tundra expedition.
这是为期四天、150 英里的苔原探险的第三天。
As we rumbled down the Dalton Highway, they caught me up on recent events.
当我们沿着道尔顿高速公路行驶时，他们向我介绍了最近发生的事件。
Day one began with a flat tire and ended with 10 sites sampled.
第一天从轮胎漏气开始，到 10 个地点进行采样结束。
On day two, the vehicle remained intact and the gang of four researchers bagged 14 more samples of damp, chocolatey marsh dirt.
第二天，车辆完好无损，四名研究人员又收集了 14 个潮湿、巧克力味的沼泽泥土样本。
We drove south out of town and parked at a roadside pullout to pick up where the team had left off.
我们开车向南出城，把车停在路边的一个停车处，去接车队停下来的地方。
During our short hike to the day’s first sample site, Van Nuland kneeled to introduce me to mycorrhizae.
在我们短暂徒步前往当天的第一个样本点的过程中，范·努兰德跪下来向我介绍菌根。
He peeled back thick moss next to a dwarf willow shrub and cut out a cold clod of dirt.
他剥掉矮柳灌木旁边厚厚的苔藓，挖出一块冰冷的土块。
Holding the excised earth in his palm, he pointed to small white clumps resembling popcorn.
他将切下的泥土握在手掌中，指着一些类似爆米花的白色小块。
“All of these are places where the [mycorrhizal] hyphae are wrapping themselves really intensely around the fine roots,” he said.
“在所有这些地方，[菌根]菌丝都非常紧密地包裹在细根周围，”他说。
“Then from this point they’re sending out their hyphal networks.” Hyphae are the individual filaments that make up the fungal body, or mycelium.
“然后从现在开始，它们就会发出它们的菌丝网络。”菌丝是构成真菌体或菌丝体的单个细丝。
These fungal tubes are made of rigid cells that contain chitin, the same compound found in insect exoskeletons.
这些真菌管由含有几丁质的刚性细胞组成，甲壳质与昆虫外骨骼中的化合物相同。
They can be impossibly thin.
它们可以薄得令人难以置信。
Hyphae are often barely five micrometers wide — about one-tenth the width of a human hair and much narrower than a plant’s root tip.
菌丝通常只有五微米宽，大约是人类头发宽度的十分之一，比植物的根尖窄得多。
By foraging, burrowing into crevices and tapping into air pockets and moist pools in the soil, hyphae can access nutrients that the shrub cannot.
通过觅食、钻入缝隙、利用土壤中的气穴和潮湿的水池，菌丝可以获得灌木无法获得的养分。
Mycorrhizal hyphae are most visible to the human eye where they wrap in dense bundles around plant roots, visible here as white popcornlike puffs.
人眼最容易看到菌根菌丝，它们密集地包裹在植物根部周围，在这里可以看到白色的爆米花状泡芙。
That’s what researchers had assumed, anyway.
无论如何，这就是研究人员的假设。
What happens inside hyphae is invisibly small.
菌丝内部发生的事情是小得看不见的。
The ability to finally see it is revolutionizing the field.
最终看到它的能力正在彻底改变这个领域。
In February 2025, Kiers’s team of ecologists joined forces with Tom Shimizu ’s biophysicists from the AMOLF Institute in Amsterdam to robotically track how nutrients flow within hyphae growing in petri dishes.
2025 年 2 月，Kiers 的生态学家团队与来自阿姆斯特丹 AMOLF 研究所的 Tom Shimizu 的生物物理学家联手，以机器人方式跟踪培养皿中生长的菌丝内养分的流动情况。
The videos look like time-lapses of urban commutes.
这些视频看起来像是城市通勤的延时摄影。
Nutrients streamed in both directions through the hyphal tunnels.
营养物质通过菌丝隧道双向流动。
As the fungi extended more hyphae, the branching network pulsed and gradually expanded into a nutrient-gobbling lace.
随着真菌延伸更多的菌丝，分支网络脉动并逐渐扩展成吞噬营养的花边。
If the hyphae were to grow any less densely, the network would be ineffective; any denser, and it would be inefficient.
如果菌丝生长得不够密集，这个网络就会失效；如果再密集，效率就会很低。
“The study is phenomenal in its precision,” said Justine Karst , a forest ecologist at the University of Alberta who was not involved in it.
“这项研究的精确度是惊人的，”阿尔伯塔大学森林生态学家贾斯汀·卡斯特（Justine Karst）说，他没有参与这项研究。
“I’ve heard one of my colleagues describe it as a masterpiece.”
“我听我的一位同事形容它是一件杰作。”
The imaging revealed how hundreds of thousands of independent fungal tips form an efficient network.
成像揭示了数十万个独立的真菌尖端如何形成一个有效的网络。
On their endless search for nutrients, hyphae encroached into empty spaces.
在无休止地寻找营养物质的过程中，菌丝侵入了空旷的空间。
When filaments bumped into each other, they fused.
当细丝相互碰撞时，它们会融合。
And when a hyphal route returned too little nourishment, the fungi cut their losses and redirected growth elsewhere.
当菌丝途径返回的营养太少时，真菌就会减少损失并将生长转向其他地方。
Nutrients flow through hyphae, each of them about one-tenth the width of a human hair.
营养物质通过菌丝流动，每个菌丝的宽度约为人类头发的十分之一。
Rachael Cargill, Loreto Oyarte Gálvez, AMOLF, S PUN
Rachael Cargill、Loreto Oyarte Gálvez、AMOLF、S PUN
These mycelial networks grew as far from the wild as one can imagine: in petri dishes in a lab in Amsterdam.
这些菌丝体网络的生长速度远超人们的想象：在阿姆斯特丹实验室的培养皿中。
Yet the resulting images have finally made their interactions visible.
然而最终的图像最终让他们的互动变得可见。
“It feels almost like you’re a primatologist hiding behind a tree,” said Kiers, who was recently awarded a MacArthur fellowship and the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement .
“感觉就像你是一位躲在树后面的灵长类动物学家，”基尔斯说，他最近获得了麦克阿瑟奖学金和泰勒环境成就奖。
In 2022, she hired Van Nuland, who had experience working with geospatial data, to help connect these microscopic exchanges to global cycles.
2022 年，她聘请了拥有地理空间数据工作经验的 Van Nuland，帮助将这些微观交换与全球周期联系起来。
“Michael is able to see this bigger picture of how all of these interactions come together to create what we see across the landscape,” Kiers said.
“迈克尔能够看到更大的图景，即所有这些相互作用如何结合在一起，创造出我们在整个景观中看到的东西，”基尔斯说。
“It’s such an incredible skill.”
“这真是一项令人难以置信的技能。”
If the hyphae were to grow any less densely, the network would be ineffective; any denser, and it would be inefficient.
如果菌丝生长得不够密集，这个网络就会失效；如果再密集，效率就会很低。
Van Nuland spent his graduate school and postdoctoral years doing fieldwork and crafting controlled lab experiments to unravel the intricate interactions between fungi and plants, adding to decades of work showing that soil fungi are important drivers of plant diversity .
范纽兰在研究生院和博士后期间进行了实地考察和精心设计的受控实验室实验，以揭示真菌和植物之间复杂的相互作用，数十年的工作表明土壤真菌是植物多样性的重要驱动因素。
When neighboring plants are similar, like two Arctic shrubs, they must differentiate how they obtain the scarce resources of the ecosystem.
当相邻植物相似时，例如两种北极灌木，它们必须区分如何获取生态系统的稀缺资源。
He has shown that each plant’s fungi enable it to strategically differentiate underground.
他已经证明，每种植物的真菌都使其能够在地下进行战略性区分。
Plants are “competing for resources, and most of their resources are actually mediated by mycorrhizal fungi,” said Karst, who studies similar interactions.
研究类似相互作用的卡斯特说，植物“正在争夺资源，而它们的大部分资源实际上是由菌根真菌介导的”。
The tens of thousands of mycorrhizal species represent a huge variation, which researchers typically divide into two main types.
数以万计的菌根物种代表着巨大的变异，研究人员通常将其分为两种主要类型。
Ectomycorrhizal fungi dominate high latitudes, where they can deliver hard-to-access soil nitrogen to plants by lassoing root cells with their hyphae.
外生菌根真菌在高纬度地区占主导地位，它们可以通过用菌丝套住根细胞，将难以获取的土壤氮输送给植物。
The more tropical, equator-clustered arbuscular fungi spear their microscopic hyphae through root cells to trade in their area of expertise, phosphorus.
更热带的、赤道丛生的丛枝真菌将其微小的菌丝刺入根细胞，以进行其专业领域的磷交易。
Far more distinctions arise within each group of fungi, which can also supply plants with vitamins and minerals, such as calcium and zinc.
每类真菌之间存在更多差异，它们还可以为植物提供维生素和矿物质，例如钙和锌。
The accumulating studies on individual systems suggest that plants and their fungi cannot be understood separately.
对单个系统的不断研究表明，植物及其真菌不能分开理解。
“I cut my teeth in ecology thinking about how above- and below-ground systems interact with one another, but to me, they seem completely inseparable,” Van Nuland said.
范纽兰说：“我在生态学方面的起步是思考地上和地下系统如何相互作用，但对我来说，它们似乎完全不可分割。”
“A forest dominated by one mycorrhizal type has a completely different ecological flow of nutrients than a forest with another type, and a large part of that seems to be the result of how different symbioses work, and which fungi are better at doing certain things than others.”
“以一种菌根类型为主的森林与以另一种菌根类型为主的森林具有完全不同的养分生态流动，其中很大一部分似乎是不同共生作用的结果，以及哪些真菌比其他真菌更擅长做某些事情。”
In other words, competition between plants is actually competition between fungi.
换句话说，植物之间的竞争实际上是真菌之间的竞争。
And in Arctic soil, he said, those competitive partnerships may “hold some of the rarest communities of mycorrhizal fungi on the planet.”
他说，在北极土壤中，这些竞争性伙伴关系可能“拥有地球上一些最稀有的菌根真菌群落”。
Van Nuland, 36, relishes a challenge.
36 岁的范纽兰 (Van Nuland) 喜欢挑战。
A longtime athlete, he built dirt-bike ramps in his childhood backyard and ran cross-country for Seattle University.
作为一名长期的运动员，他在童年的后院建造了越野车坡道，并为西雅图大学越野跑。
In 2019, he completed a 50-mile ultramarathon in British Columbia.
2019年，他在不列颠哥伦比亚省完成了50英里超级马拉松。
By mid-morning on day three in Alaska, his competitive spirit resurfaced.
在阿拉斯加的第三天上午，他的竞争精神又重新出现了。
A SPUN expedition to Kazakhstan in 2023 had bagged 57 soil samples.
2023 年前往哈萨克斯坦的 SPUN 探险队收集了 57 个土壤样本。
Van Nuland wanted 60.
范纽兰想要 60。
One sample consisted of nine soil cores, each taken 15 meters from a central point that was roughly half a mile from the highway.
一个样本由九个土芯组成，每个土芯距离距高速公路大约半英里的中心点 15 米处采集。
Jinsu Elhance , a geospatial data scientist with SPUN, crouched to hammer the 7-inch-long metal cylinder into the soil.
SPUN 的地理空间数据科学家 Jinsu Elhance 蹲下身子，将 7 英寸长的金属圆柱体敲入土壤中。
Clink.
碰杯。
Clink.
碰杯。
Clink.
碰杯。
Sometimes the soil was soft and wet; other times, it was chunky or icy.
有时土壤又软又湿；有时土壤又软又湿。其他时候，它是厚实的或冰冷的。
“There’s a frozen puck,” Elhance said as he thumbed some stubborn, bagged permafrost.
“有一个冰球，”埃尔汉斯一边说，一边用拇指拨弄着一些顽固的、袋装的永久冻土。
The cores contained plant roots, fungi and whatever else lives in the soil — a snapshot of life underground and a census of biodiversity in a certain spot at a certain moment in time.
核心包含植物根、真菌和土壤中的其他生物——地下生命的快照和特定时间特定地点的生物多样性普查。
Jinsu Elhance, a geospatial data scientist, hammers a metal cylinder into the ground to extract a soil sample.
地理空间数据科学家 Jinsu Elhance 将金属圆柱体敲入地下以提取土壤样本。
At each site, he retrieves nine cores; back at the lab, DNA analysis will reveal the mycorrhizal fungi species contained within.
在每个地点，他都取回了九个核心；回到实验室，DNA 分析将揭示其中包含的菌根真菌种类。
At each sample site, Mario Muscarella , a collaborator and microbiologist at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, marked the precise GPS coordinates, identified plant species at the surface, and jammed a probe into the earth to measure temperature and moisture.
在每个样本点，阿拉斯加大学费尔班克斯分校的合作者兼微生物学家马里奥·穆斯卡雷拉（Mario Muscarella）标记了精确的 GPS 坐标，识别了地表的植物种类，并将探针插入地球以测量温度和湿度。
A lab would later analyze each site’s soil nutrients and extract DNA sequences from the samples to search for undiscovered fungal species.
随后，实验室将分析每个地点的土壤养分，并从样本中提取 DNA 序列，以寻找未被发现的真菌物种。
The day carried us 50 more miles south through the North Slope to the Brooks Range.
这一天，我们又向南行驶 50 英里，穿过北坡到达布鲁克斯山脉。
We drove past muskoxen, icy ponds, and fragrant hills traversed by Alaska’s high-pressure crude oil pipeline.
我们开车经过麝牛、冰冷的池塘和阿拉斯加高压原油管道穿过的芳香山丘。
At the end of day three, the team reached its 39th site, a sloped meadow overlooking the Kuparuk River — leaving the group 21 sites shy of its target with one day remaining.
第三天结束时，团队到达了第 39 个地点，这是一片俯瞰库帕鲁克河的倾斜草地，距离目标还有 21 个地点，距离目标还剩一天。
The final day began with a stinging cold you’d expect from the tundra: 30 degrees Fahrenheit beneath thick fog.
最后一天以苔原上常见的刺骨寒冷开始：浓雾下气温为 30 华氏度。
Yet it was June, and summer was well underway.
然而现在是六月，夏天已经来临。
We trudged through calf-deep snowmelt to a drier spot for the team to sample.
我们艰难地穿过齐膝深的融雪，到达一个干燥的地方，以便团队进行采样。
Heaps of last summer’s grassy sedge lay withered around us.
去年夏天的莎草堆在我们周围枯萎了。
“It’s odorless,” Muscarella said, “but I’m sure that we’re breathing in a ton of methane right now.”
“它没有气味，”穆斯卡雷拉说，“但我确信我们现在正在吸入大量甲烷。”
Competition between plants is actually competition between fungi.
植物之间的竞争实际上是真菌之间的竞争。
Long-dead plants, animals, and fungi were thawing after a cold winter, making their carbon accessible to microbial decomposers that digest complex organic gunk and belch simpler vapors: carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, greenhouse gases all.
死去已久的植物、动物和真菌在寒冷的冬天后解冻，使它们的碳能够被微生物分解者利用，这些分解者消化复杂的有机物质并喷出更简单的蒸气：二氧化碳、甲烷和一氧化二氮，所有这些都是温室气体。
As climate change tightens its grip over the Arctic, deeper layers of permafrost are activating in this way.
随着气候变化对北极的影响越来越大，更深的永久冻土层正在以这种方式激活。
Microbes no longer limit their feast to last year’s harvest: They can also liberate carbon that has spent thousands of years in frozen isolation.
微生物不再将它们的盛宴限制在去年的收成上：它们还可以释放出在冰冻隔离中数千年的碳。
Microbial fungi are key to understanding where that carbon is going.
微生物真菌是了解碳去向的关键。
After decades of snubbing fungi as parasites or passive tubes, the escalating tally of their functions has led researchers to consider mycorrhizae a missing link in climate studies.
经过数十年的冷落，真菌被视为寄生虫或被动管，其功能的不断升级使研究人员认为菌根是气候研究中缺失的一环。
In 2023, Van Nuland and Kiers helped estimate how much carbon is stored by fungi annually: 3.93 billion tons by arbuscular and 9.07 billion tons by ectomycorrhizal — a combined value that represents 36% of all carbon dioxide emitted across the planet every year.
2023 年，Van Nuland 和 Kiers 帮助估算了真菌每年储存的碳量：丛枝菌为 39.3 亿吨，外生菌根为 90.7 亿吨——合计值占全球每年排放的二氧化碳总量的 36%。
“If we’re going to generate anything like a mycorrhizal species Red List, one of the big components of that is understanding the threats and the population trends of those species,” said Michael Van Nuland (right), referring to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s global inventory of threatened species.
“如果我们要制定像菌根物种红色名录这样的东西，其中重要的组成部分之一就是了解这些物种的威胁和种群趋势，”迈克尔·范·努兰德（右）在提到国际自然保护联盟全球受威胁物种清单时说。
“It’s the cycle of life and death that creates a really big soil carbon influx,” Van Nuland said.
范纽兰说：“正是生与死的循环创造了巨大的土壤碳流入。”
“It’s a living infrastructure and a dying infrastructure.”
“这是一个活的基础设施，也是一个垂死的基础设施。”
But such productivity is complicated.
但这样的生产力是复杂的。
The role of specific fungi within each group is richly varied.
每个类群中特定真菌的作用是多种多样的。
Mycologists are finding that some fungal species are excellent decomposers.
真菌学家发现一些真菌物种是优秀的分解者。
Among those decomposers, some store dead carbon efficiently while others burp most of it into the air.
在这些分解器中，一些分解器可以有效地储存死碳，而另一些分解器则将大部分死碳排放到空气中。
“The taxonomic identity can really matter,” said Rebecca Hewitt , an ecologist at Amherst College who studies plant-microbe interactions in the Arctic.
“分类学身份确实很重要，”阿默斯特学院研究北极植物与微生物相互作用的生态学家丽贝卡·休伊特说。
“Who is there really affects the function.”
“谁在那里确实会影响功能。”
In Alaska, it remains an open question which species — the carbon keepers or the carbon leakers — will thrive as the ground warms, and what that means for the global climate.
在阿拉斯加，哪个物种（碳保持者或碳泄漏者）会随着地面变暖而繁衍生息，以及这对全球气候意味着什么，仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。
Some fungi will thrive.
有些真菌会茁壮成长。
Others will perish.
其他人将会灭亡。
The “winners” may dictate whether the Arctic becomes a source of planet-warming carbon.
“赢家”可能决定北极是否成为导致地球变暖的碳的来源。
At site 54, as we hiked back to the SUV, Van Nuland reflected on the larger repercussions of this work.
在 54 号地点，当我们徒步回到 SUV 时，Van Nuland 反思了这项工作的更大影响。
He suspects that tundra fungi “have particular traits” that capture carbon more efficiently.
他怀疑苔原真菌“具有特定的特征”，可以更有效地捕获碳。
“Once we identify the unique mycorrhizal species here, we’ll be able to connect them to the carbon drawdown that we’re estimating for this area,” he said.
“一旦我们确定了这里独特的菌根物种，我们就能够将它们与我们估计的该地区的碳减少联系起来，”他说。
Researchers walk beneath a high-pressure pipeline that carries fossil fuel across the tundra from the Prudhoe Bay oil field.
研究人员走在一条高压管道下方，该管道将化石燃料从普拉德霍湾油田输送到苔原。
This potential mycorrhizal hot spot is located on land caught in a decades-long tug of war between conservationists and drilling interests.
这个潜在的菌根热点位于自然资源保护主义者和钻探利益集团之间长达数十年拉锯战的土地上。
The team paused for lunch after we pulled over at site 55.
我们在 55 号站点停下来后，团队停下来吃午饭。
Van Nuland offered a cheeky bribe from the driver’s seat: “If we hit 60 [sites], we can go to the store” — the Prudhoe Bay General Store, where the researchers could buy polar bear postcards and “DALTON HIGHWAY SURVIVOR” stickers.
Van Nuland 在驾驶座上厚颜无耻地行贿：“如果我们到达 60 个[站点]，我们就可以去商店”——普拉德霍湾杂货店，研究人员可以在那里购买北极熊明信片和“道尔顿高速公路幸存者”贴纸。
They found their second wind.
他们找到了第二缕曙光。
We approached the upland foothills, climbing toward a wall of 8,000-foot peaks that run east-to-west like a continental collar.
我们走近了高地山麓，向一座 8,000 英尺高的山峰攀登，这些山峰像大陆领一样从东向西延伸。
Marsh gave way to thicker moss and shaggier shrubs.
沼泽被更厚的苔藓和更茂密的灌木所取代。
Any doubts Van Nuland may have had about the potential for rare fungi faded with every mile and site.
范纽兰对稀有真菌潜力的任何怀疑随着每英里和地点的增加而逐渐消失。
The Brooks Range and icy coastline of Prudhoe Bay have functionally isolated the tundra’s plant-fungus partnerships from the rest of Alaska.
布鲁克斯山脉和普拉德霍湾冰冷的海岸线在功能上将苔原的植物真菌伙伴关系与阿拉斯加其他地区隔离开来。
“We know that big mountain ranges create geographic barriers and therefore lead to isolation and the evolution of unique species, and therefore unique symbiosis partnerships in that place,” he said.
“我们知道，大山脉会造成地理障碍，从而导致独特物种的孤立和进化，从而导致该地区独特的共生伙伴关系，”他说。
“It’s got me thinking, what’s their story going to be?”
“这让我思考，他们的故事会是什么？”
We reached site 60 at 4 p.m.
我们于下午 4 点到达站点 60。
Van Nuland parked in a wide pullout, and we hiked for a few minutes to a west-facing hill blanketed in cottongrass.
范·纽兰把车停在一个宽阔的停车场，我们徒步几分钟来到了一座朝西的长满棉草的小山。
Each person tackled familiar chores — GPS, plants and soil — and then took turns swinging at the steel tube for the final core.
每个人都处理熟悉的杂务——GPS、植物和土壤——然后轮流摆动钢管以获得最后的核心。
Sixty sites, at nine cores per site: 540 samples in four days.
60 个站点，每个站点 9 个核心：四天内采集 540 个样本。
“I’m proud of the hustle,” Van Nuland said after the last clod of tundra soil entered the last sample bag.
“我为这种忙碌感到自豪，”在最后一块苔原土进入最后一个样品袋后，范·努兰德说道。
“Amazing data is going to come out of this expedition.”
“这次探险将会带来惊人的数据。”
Left: In the backseat of an SUV, Kelcie Walther transfers soil samples into labeled tubes.
左：在一辆 SUV 的后座上，Kelcie Walther 将土壤样本转移到贴有标签的试管中。
Right: On his phone, Michael Van Nuland zooms in on the researchers’ route and sample sites, which lie along a southbound track toward the mountains of the Brooks Range.
右图：Michael Van Nuland 在手机上放大了研究人员的路线和采样点，这些点位于通往布鲁克斯山脉山脉的南行轨道上。
Four months later, in November 2025, Van Nuland emailed me the preliminary results.
四个月后，即 2025 年 11 月，Van Nuland 通过电子邮件向我发送了初步结果。
Each of the sampling sites contained, on average, about 75 different species of ectomycorrhizal fungi.
每个采样点平均含有约 75 种不同的外生菌根真菌。
The composition of species shifted strongly from north to south.
物种组成从北向南发生了强烈变化。
Of the 354 different species the researchers logged, 253 were previously unknown.
在研究人员记录的 354 个不同物种中，有 253 个是以前未知的。
The region appears to be a hot spot for rare, endemic fungi.
该地区似乎是稀有特有真菌的热点地区。
Roughly three of four species they detected have been found nowhere else.
他们检测到的四个物种中大约有三个在其他地方没有发现过。
Although some may theoretically exist in unsampled tundra — in a place like Siberia, maybe — Van Nuland suspects that many of the species will prove to be endemic to this region.
尽管从理论上讲，有些物种可能存在于未采样的苔原中——也许是西伯利亚这样的地方——范纽兰怀疑，许多物种将被证明是该地区的特有物种。
These plants and fungi have been left to co-evolve, alone but together, for millions of years, wedged between mountain and sea as if on a remote island.
这些植物和真菌共同进化，单独但共同进化了数百万年，楔入山海之间，就像在一座偏远的岛屿上一样。
“Seeing it on a map is one thing.
“在地图上看到它是一回事。
But being there really drove home just how unique these ecosystems are,” he said.
但身临其境确实让人们认识到这些生态系统是多么独特，”他说。
“There were a lot of unnamed species that we found.”
“我们发现了很多未命名的物种。”
Losing rare fungi could mean losing the unique role they play, and could further destabilize the ecosystem.
失去稀有真菌可能意味着失去它们所发挥的独特作用，并可能进一步破坏生态系统的稳定。
“People picture protecting the Amazon rainforest,” Van Nuland said.
“人们想象着保护亚马逊雨林，”范努兰德说。
“But for soil, it’s hard.
“但对于土壤来说，这很难。
Where are the Amazons of the soil?”
大地上的亚马逊人在哪里？”
They may be all over the world.
他们可能遍布世界各地。
Alaska’s North Slope is just one of the dozens of possible fungal hot spots that SPUN researchers plan to visit.
阿拉斯加的北坡只是 SPUN 研究人员计划访问的数十个可能的真菌热点之一。
The organization works with researchers across 79 countries.
该组织与 79 个国家的研究人员合作。
Kiers joins four of five trips per year, often with her children.
基尔斯每年参加五次旅行中的四次，通常是带着她的孩子们。
In Kazakhstan, SPUN wants to learn how fungi help grassland plants withstand drought.
在哈萨克斯坦，SPUN 希望了解真菌如何帮助草原植物抵御干旱。
On the Palmyra Atoll in the central Pacific, trees and their fungal partners infiltrate coral rubble and compete with invasive coconut palms.
在太平洋中部的帕尔米拉环礁，树木及其真菌伙伴渗透到珊瑚碎石中，并与入侵的椰子树竞争。
In Lesotho in southern Africa, fungi seem to help thwart erosion on agricultural land.
在南部非洲的莱索托，真菌似乎有助于阻止农田的侵蚀。
“Each place that we’ve gone to has a different story,” Van Nuland said.
“我们去过的每个地方都有不同的故事，”范努兰说。
The biodiversity data from each site can feed back into SPUN’s model to improve the hot spot predictions.
每个站点的生物多样性数据可以反馈到 SPUN 的模型中，以改进热点预测。
Some sites are worth revisiting.
有些网站值得重新访问。
In summer 2026, Van Nuland and his team will return to Deadhorse to measure the flux of carbon in and out of the tundra soil.
2026 年夏天，Van Nuland 和他的团队将返回 Deadhorse，测量进出苔原土壤的碳通量。
Ecologists don’t know what thawing permafrost will do for Earth’s carbon balance.
生态学家不知道永久冻土的融化会对地球的碳平衡产生什么影响。
But as relentless daylight returns each year, new pools of carbon appear within reach of the soil’s most intrepid hyphae.
但随着每年无情的日照回归，新的碳库就会出现在土壤最勇敢的菌丝触手可及的范围内。
The scientists yearn to know what mycorrhizae will do with it.
科学家们渴望知道菌根会用它做什么。
The fungi will provide answers to those patient enough to listen.
真菌将为那些足以倾听的患者提供答案。
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获取发送到您的电子邮件收件箱的最重要新闻的摘要
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《Quanta》杂志对评论进行审核，以促进知情、实质性、文明的对话。
Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected.
辱骂、亵渎、自我推销、误导、语无伦次或偏离主题的评论将被拒绝。
Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (New York time) and can only accept comments written in English.
版主在正常工作时间（纽约时间）有工作人员，并且只能接受英文评论。