Shrooms Shrivel by Anna Barnett
Warming and drying suppress microbial activity and carbon cycling in boreal forest soils by Steven D. Allison and Kathleen K. Treseder
The news article that I will be discussing is entitled "Shrooms Shrivel," from nature.com. Written by Anna Barnett, it describes research completed by Steven Allison and Kathleen Treseder (University of California, Irvine) on the effects that mushrooms may have on global climate change. Their work is entitled, "Warming and drying suppress microbial activity and carbon cycling in boreal forest soils."
1) The nature.com article makes several major claims about Allison and Treseder's findings, which are mostly consistent with their work. Barnett states that as soils heat up, mushrooms wither away and do not release carbon dioxide. This is mostly true, however, the original paper states that only fifty percent of the mushrooms "withered away." Barnett's article does mention that, "the fungal group most affected includes mushroom species thought to produce high carbon emissions". This is a key point that is made in the original paper. Barnett makes other less significant statements that are more specific, relating to certain data, and are identical to the information in the article.
2) Some information that Barnett chose not to mention can be found in the "Conclusion" section of the original paper. She mentions the most pertinent information, but unlike Allison and Treseder, she lacks discussion about the role of the Nitrogen (N) cycle. The paper mentions "N availability increased with warming," and that some "fungal taxa responded positively and may have contributed preferentially to N cycling." This is some important information that Barnett definitely forgoes.
3) For the most part Barnett conveys a very similar amount of uncertainty (or lack there of) compared to that of the paper. Although Allison and Treseder's findings were contradictory to previous work, they were certain of their results, and addressed this very argumentatively. Although Barnett does not combat possibilities of misinterpreted evidence, she certainly communicates the certainty of the authors.
4) Barnett is also consistent with the authors in expressing the implications of their work, but only in her conclusion. Initially she states, "Mushrooms growing in northern forests may provide a helping hand in combating climate change." This is a much more positive and general tone than that that is expressed by Allison and Treseder. They merely say that "ecosystem models in the boreal zone should consider how spatial heterogeneity in soil properties and microbial communities may affect the direction of the climate warming-C cycle feedback." This is nowhere near as direct or hopeful sounding as Barnett's opening statement. She proceeds throughout most of her article with this tone, highlighting the positive findings of the authors' work, and does not address the rarity of this study's findings until her conclusion. Her grabbing opening statement is almost unfair to the reader, as he or she proceeds only to find out that the authors' findings were extremely site-specific and unexpected.
5) Although she does mention that Allison and Treseder's findings were "unexpected," she limits the details of this unexpectedness. Their work was contradictory to many previous studies that were completed on the feedback mechanisms of boreal ecosystems related to warming. Allison and Treseder also expressed that the reasons for the rarity of their findings could be due to the specificity of the environment. Barnett addresses this much more explicitly. Her conclusion actually does a wonderful job of summarizing the rarity of Allison and Treseder's findings. She claims:
The authors say the results were unexpected, and suggest they are specific to the type of environment they studied: a well-drained forest with no permafrost, such that the soil dries easily.
6) This article does not completely proliferate the belief that science news items are "debates between equal sides." In the aforementioned concluding statements that Barnett makes, she addresses the rarity of the authors' findings. However, she does neglect to mention the amount of contrary evidence, and she overwhelms the reader with a broad-sweeping tone for most of her article that seems to elevate the importance of Allison and Treseder's findings. Although she rescues herself from complete misinterpretation with her conclusion, she certainly lights fire to ideas that are expressed with a minority of evidence, for the majority of her piece.