fungi

A recent study shows that soils with native grasses have higher levels of a key soil component  than soils planted to alien grasses. The amount of glomalin in the soil increases as the degree of interdependence between plants and the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi increases. These fungi produce glomalin and live inside plant roots and the surrounding soil. That interdependence is greatest in warm-season native grasses such as switchgrass, blue grama, big bluestem and indiangrass.