Mycorrhizal Fungi and Phosphates

Hello!

I'm not really able to understand how mycorrhizal fungi help plants get more phosphate ions? I kinda get the part of them having greater surface area coverage but other than that I don't understand why they are useful. Could someone help?

Thank You!

In soils with low solution phosphorus concentration and high phosphate fixation, slow diffusion may seriously limit the ability of roots to obtain sufficient phosphorus. The hyphae of symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi help overcome this problem. The fungi "explore" the much larger volume of soil than even fines root hairs can, absorb the available phosphate ions, and by cytoplasmic streaming inside the hyphae, transport phosphates to the host plant. This makes the plant much less dependent on the diffusion of phosphate ions through the soil.