To survive dry spells, bacteria rely on carbon from dead fungi, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal eLife.

Understanding soil ecology is vital to the study of forests, carbon cycles, climate change, sustainable agriculture and more. Unfortunately, it's quite difficult to observe the behavior of soil microbes.

To get a better view of the biological activity going on beneath the soil surface, researchers made the soil see-through.

"To advance the study of soil processes, we used transparent soil substitutes that allowed us to use microscopes and other experimental techniques to see and measure the activity of soil bacteria and determine how this activity depends on the fungi," said lead study author Kriti Sharma said in a news release.

Sharma completed the study as a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina.

Sharma, now a postdoctoral researcher at Caltech, and collaborators from Vienna, Australia, grew communities of soil bacteria and fungi in a pair of transparent substrates.

One of the substrates consisted of a synthetic polymer called Nafion, while the other was composed of a naturally occurring crystal called cryolite.

The transparency of the substrates allowed researchers to observe the behavior of bacteria and fungi when the soil gets dehydrated and rehydrated.

Microscopes allowed scientists to measure the metabolic activity of the different microbes, while an imaging technique called Raman microspectroscopy helped researchers monitor carbon uptake.

The observations showed that while many microbes died or went dormant when the soil dried out, those located near dead fungi were able to persist and remain active by absorbing the fungi's carbon.

"In this way, fungi promote the activity of soil bacteria in changing environmental conditions," Sharma said.

Researchers hope the see-through substrates will be used by other scientists to investigate a variety of soil-based biological processes.

"For example, they could be used to explore how interactions between bacteria, fungi and other microscopic creatures living in soil help support the growth of crops," Sharma said. "Or, to better understand how carbon is stored and released from soil, which may be critical to combating climate change."

"Overall, these transparent soil substitutes are powerful tools that will help us answer many outstanding questions in soil microbial ecology," she said.

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