Redwood Reader

There is no doubt we can use glomalin to measure ecosystem health. Yet such a system is in a continuous growing and declining state, just like any other population. Detecting the presence of a universal substance doesn’t give us much insight into the health or potential of the system. This is why we have pointed out the current methods of study give us only snapshots of activity rather than dynamic patterns usually associated with living systems.
That is to say, digging up the ground to a certain point will surely indicate the presence of some of this material, but what is the saturation point, how much is accumulated over time, how deep into the soil have the hyphae penetrated, and what is the water carrying capacity of the soil with and without varying amounts of deposited glomalin?
While we wait for scientists to begin looking at glomalin in forested settings, we do have some information to go on. The development of recording dynamic processes was well illustrated in some of James Burkes’ series Connections. In particular, the calculus of the flight of early artillery shells demonstrates recording of dynamic activity. At ant point along the flight, height, distance and time could be recorded, but it did not have much value until equations that compared many individual calculations was devised. Once the flight path was figured, many guns could be targeted the same way. Each time a gun was moved, new calculations were called for.
Now substitute trees for guns and we see why past methods of measuring forest health were often flawed. Rotations were based on tree growth, and the wild cut over lands did come back. Yet watershed health and associated problems continued to worsen. More runoff, less precipitation capture, less particulate or core forming gas emissions, less cooling of air by shade all impact the next level of forest health- habitat, biodiversity, water quality and the ability to clean the air of natural and manmade pollutants.
New models are called for. Mycologists are often amazed by the appearance and disappearance of certain mushrooms in a given location. A dynamic approach would see many fungi species living in an area, some of which produce mushrooms regularly, but the majority need specific conditions to fruit. Many fruit underground so there is no visible count. Other species are related to the growing conditions of their mycorhizzal associates such as age, side pressure or canopy closure. More species lie dormant as spores in the soil awaiting catastrophic landscape change. Climax forests have a seemingly lowered mycological biodiversity count but that is more a case of top level members controlling the other species, probably through pheromones. So we need much more thorough methods of accounting for soil fungi.
This, again, is easier to picture as a city of millions of inhabitants all of whom are working on the collective efforts in building and maintaining the city. All living members of this ecosystem are workers for the greater good, and all are taxed to improve infrastructure and living conditions. Each has their role and dominates in the process for a while, then settle into long term routines we recognize as normal conditions. Just like the barbarian invasions, the destructive activities in one area have repercussions throughout a much wider sphere of influence than the attackers realize. Removal of command and control and primary producers causes the workers to get busy rebuilding or suffer a dark ages where it is impossible to recreate the earlier conditions.
As the farmers have shown, glomalin is a dynamic attribute of healthy soils. The understanding allows us to harvest products we need as humans without depleting the natural systems or reducing productivity. The realization that this is a dynamic process will give us management tools for the future across the globe. Glomalin will be an essential part of teaching the water cycle and the basis for regulatory measures that protect the biological processes we depend on as a species. Its role mitigating problems with atmospheric, bioactive heavy metals and water quality issues will give us the tools we need for a sustainable future. Like the early artillerymen, a basic understanding will be the basis for mant improvements we do a have part in, in the same way the flight of a thrown stone would be a precursor to the flight of a cannonball, subject to continual improvement even today.