And this secret system can help combat climate change. Discovery contradicts the idea that plant roots progressively decrease in number and dimension as they deepen the soil.
Nearly 20% Of the species analyzed around the world, they have a second root system, much deeper than it has been thought so far, reveals a study on June 17 in Nature Communications.
These secondary roots are more than one meter deep and allow plant nutrients to access so far or not in the various scientific studies. The investigation analyzed soil samples collected at more than 1.8 meters deep in 44 locations, with several climates and ecosystems, from Alaska Tundra to the Tropical Forests of Puerto Rico.
Researchers found that in many of these places, plants had peaks of root mass (mass flow process, where water absorption and nutrients occur in conjunction with the movement of water in the soil) in two soil zones – a phenomenon designated as “bimodality“.
The discovery contradicts the idea that plant roots progressively decrease in number and dimension as they deepen in the ground. In fact, this second root system allows plants to explore layers of the nutrient -rich soil such as the nitrogenoffering an alternative way to obtain resources, especially under conditions where surface soil is poor or water is scarce, as pointed out.
Researchers stress that this feature may be an adaptive response to adverse environmental conditions, as it is more frequent in plants facing poorly reliable surface soils. And since soil can contain more carbon than the atmosphere, better understand these roots can be critical to developing climate change mitigation strategies.
Now, what remains is to dig deeper.
