A commentary by F. Curtis Lubbe at the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
The belowground lives of plants are very different than those we see above the soil. As aboveground, in the soil plants grow, branch, forage, compete, and have complex multualistic relationships. However, all of these processes are a bit different because of the use of roots as an integral part of anchoring and foraging, and the protection and support of the soil around storage organs and skeletal roots. Instead of pollinators and reproduction, complex mutualistic relationships with different kinds of fungi and bacteria supply vital nutrients and resources for plant life. Roots and rhizomes can twist and twine around one another, competing for resources but also spreading and multiplying belowground, producing new aboveground stems to compete for sunlight.
Life belowground is dynamic and chaotic. For many perennial herbs, this is where they keep their storage and essentially the centre of their bodies as they lose all aboveground structures during unfavorable seasons or recurrent disturbance. Storage is complex – it is an allocation of resources as insurance for the future at the cost of seasonal growth and reproduction, thus there is also an element of planning and even gambling as plants try to predict what they will need. To maintain the protection of their storage allocation from stress and damage, many plants are dependent on insulation by snow, litter, and soil. Thus, rhizomes can grow downward or plants use their contractile roots to pull themselves deeper for greater protection.
The belowground is half the plant, if not more, and soil contains a huge variety of resources and is also a safe space for the placement of precious resources needed for the future. Yet, this important component of plant life is hidden, obscured by soil and often very difficult to study without considerable labour and destruction. The belowground organs of the plant guide growth, competition, and ecosystem resources in ways we are only beginning to understand and there is so much more to learn. To truly understand plant life, we must go belowground and besides just that, it is fascinating in its own right.
References
Bergmann, J., Weigelt, A., van Der Plas, F., Laughlin, D. C., Kuyper, T. W., Guerrero-Ramirez, N., … & Mommer, L. (2020). The fungal collaboration gradient dominates the root economics space in plants. Science Advances, 6(27), eaba3756. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aba3756
Klimešová, J., & Herben, T. (2024). Belowground morphology as a clue for plant response to disturbance and productivity in a temperate flora. New Phytologist, 242(1), 61–79. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.19584
Klimešová, J., Martínková, J., Ottaviani, G., & Charles-Dominique, T. (2020). Half of the (big) picture is missing. American Journal of Botany,107(3), 385–389. https://hal.science/hal-02998989/document
Laughlin, D. C., Mommer, L., Sabatini, F. M., Bruelheide, H., Kuyper, T. W., McCormack, M. L., … & Weigelt, A. (2021). Root traits explain plant species distributions along climatic gradients yet challenge the nature of ecological trade-offs. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 5(8), 1123–1134. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01471-7
Lubbe, F. C., Klimešová, J., & Henry, H. A. L. (2021). Winter belowground: Changing winters and the perennating organs of herbaceous plants. Functional Ecology, 35(8), 1627–1639. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.13858
Illustration previously featured in the article Nebojme se roztomilosti in Vesmír by F. Curtis Lubbe and Jitka Klimešová
Plant Life Belowground 