The talent of fungi for decomposing and recycling organic matter is what makes them indispensable, not only to trees but to all life on earth. If the soil is the earth’s stomach, fungi supply its digestive enzymes—literally. Without fungi to break things down, the earth would long ago have suffocated beneath a blanket of organic matter created by plants; the dead would pile up without end, the carbon cycle would cease to function, and living things would run out of things to eat. We tend to train our attention and science on life and growth, but of course death and decomposition are no less
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