Post provided by Natalie Cooper, MEE Senior Editor In September 2025 we ran a hackathon to collect data for a paper on data- and code-sharing across the BES journals. After the event, we thought it…

Airborne environmental DNA (eDNA) is a powerful tool for assessing biodiversity, but its temporal dynamics and applicability to fungi remain poorly understood. Here we discuss how short-term airbo...

https://youtu.be/3G9cgis_CV0 La temporada de bolets arriba al seu punt àlgid i ho fa amb males notícies a la zona del Paratge Natural d'Interès Nacional (PNIN) de Poblet. La falta de pluges a fina...

Plants form mycorrhizal symbioses to enhance nutrient acquisition, yet the biophysical principles governing carbon and nutrient exchange remain unclear. Here, we develop a theory of bi-directional carbon–nutrient transfer that integrates root anatomy, energetic costs, and mycorrhizal positioning. We show that nutrient uptake per unit carbon or energy investment declines with increasing root diameter due to higher carbon demands across thicker cortical tissues. Mycorrhizal fungi mitigate this constraint by enabling more carbon-efficient nutrient uptake, particularly when arbuscules are positioned in inner cortical layers. This spatial optimization minimizes the carbon cost of transporting nutrients to the stele. Our framework reconciles anatomical variation, symbiotic structure, and functional efficiency across root types and mycorrhizal strategies and offers a new lens for understanding the coevolution between roots and mycorrhizal fungi.