‘Zombie spiders' and Darwin collection among fungi archived in Kew digitisation
Teams have been creating high resolution images, transcribing the data and uploading it onto Kew's data portal, which grants researchers worldwide remote access to the collection.
Kew's Fungarium (Sebastian Kettley/RBG Kew/PA)
The specimens are georeferenced and span decades, meaning experts can observe how a species' range has changed over time, helping to inform conservation plans.
Kew scientists have also been tapping into the genetic information stored in the Fungarium's 50,000 type specimens.
The project, which is a partnership with the National History Museum and is backed by Government funding, aims to sequence about 7,000 of these fungi, making the data publicly available online in the coming years.
This means anyone will be able to see the genetic code of a species, which could help to unlock new compounds and genetic sequences, accelerate the discovery of new chemicals and medicines, and tackle the climate and biodiversity crises.
The mouldy fungi Penicillium rubens (Sebastian Kettley/RBG Kew/PA)
Dr Ester Gaya, senior research leader in comparative fungal biology, said: 'It is incredibly exciting to imagine what diversity of compounds is hidden away in these collections.
'By sequencing these specimens, we hope to tap into these potential benefits, while providing new tools to accelerate species identification and insights into how fungi relate to one another through time.'
Scientists estimate there are 2.5 million fungal species in the world but only 166,000 have been described.
Shaheenara Chowdhury, operations manager of the Fungarium digitisation, said: 'Fungi have been overlooked by the scientific community for so long, and yet they are amongst the most wonderful and mysterious organisms on the planet.
Stereum hirsutum, a fungus collected at around 15,000ft during an Everest expedition in 1953 (Paul Figg/RBG Kew/PA)
'It's incredibly exciting to imagine what new discoveries are going to be made with the aid of this new, powerful resource.'
Among the species digitised by the Kew team is Gibellula attenboroughii – or David Attenborough's 'zombie fungus' – named after first being spotted on an episode of BBC's Winterwatch in 2021, having infected an orb-weaving cave spider.
The parasitic fungus species belongs to a group that infects their invertebrate hosts and takes control before killing them as part of their spore-spreading mechanisms.
Other species include Stereum hirsutum, a fungus collected at around 15,000ft during an Everest expedition in 1953, possibly during the climb of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.
Hemileia vastatrix causes a fungal disease known as coffee rust (Paul Figg/RBG Kew/PA)
Another was Cyttaria dawinii, a small globular parasitic fungus collected by Charles Darwin in the Tierra del Fuego archipelago in South America during the HMS Beagle voyage between 1831 and 1836.
Kew scientists also highlighted Hemileia vastatrix, which causes a fungal disease known as coffee rust which is devastating to the coffee genus Coffea and is threatening farms around the world already under pressure from climate change.
The mouldy fungi Penicillium rubens, which Scottish physician Alexander Fleming discovered produced the groundbreaking antibiotic compound in the 1920s, is also included in the digitised archive.
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Even in midsummer, the ancient hazelwoods on the Hebridean island of Seil are cool and quiet. Countless slanted stems of hazel support a thick canopy, which blots out the sun and blankets everything below in a sort of 'fairytale darkness', says Bethan Manley, a biologist at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. Moss and lichen coat branches threaded with honeysuckle, forming a great dome above you, adds David Satori, a researcher at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. This rich forest, on Scotland's Hebridean islands, is a remnant of one of Britain's oldest woodland environments. When the last ice age ended, the mile-thick glacier that had buried northern Europe melted away and hazelnuts sprouted across the rock left behind. Scientists can date when those forests sprang up across the west coast of Britain and Ireland, says Satori, because 'about 10,000 years ago, you have a massive spike in hazel pollen'. 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Planet-wide, about two-thirds of temperate rainforests could be lost as weather patterns shift, according to that research – with some nations, such as Austria, losing 90%. But the UK and Ireland have large expanses of unforested and rainy land, meaning these two countries have an opportunity to become 'global leaders in restoration and reforestation of temperate rainforest,' the authors write. Forests' ability to regrow, however, is strongly dependent on the communities of mycorrhizal fungi that grow symbiotically with roots, allowing the fungi and tree to exchange nutrients. Although mycorrhizal fungi have seen huge declines across Europe, being planted in native soil microbiome with healthy fungi can stimulate the growth of trees and other plants by 64%, research has shown. The first problem for hazelwood rainforests, as well as many rare forests across the planet, is that no one knows what this subterranean ecology involves, says Satori. 'Hardly anything has been done to understand these communities,' he says. About three-quarters of fungi are 'dark taxa' – species known only by their DNA sequence, as physical specimens have not been found. Over the next two years, Satori will be documenting soil fungi at Ballachuan and more than 20 other sites to establish the first ever map of mycorrhizal communities across Britain's temperate rainforest zones. Today, he is driving a metal coring device down into the soil around the hazel's roots. It pulls out root tips, to see what is associating with the hazel, while also sampling soil environmental DNA. This 'eDNA' can give a broad picture of the range of fungi that are down there, which play different roles in the ecosystem. Satori's work is supported by the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (Spun), a research organisation founded in 2021 to analyse mycorrhizal fungal communities and advocate for their protection. The sampling work in Seil links Scotland's chill forests to similarly endangered, yet very different, rainforests in Colombia and Palmyra island, the Earth's most remote atoll. At each of the research sites, the below-ground microbiome – which the organisation calls the 'circulatory system of the planet' – is being probed to produce a global map, which was recently published in the journal Nature. In the richly biodiverse Magdalena River valley in Colombia, they are testing areas of rainforest cleared for cattle ranching, to see whether these fields still have similar fungal microbiomes as areas of untouched primary rainforest, or have flipped into new states. In areas now abandoned by farmers, Spun is monitoring to see if places that are rich in forest fungi naturally regrow better –and produce a map of the fungi-rich locations that may be best for replanting. The challenge in the UK is in some ways more extreme than Colombia, says Manley. While much of the Colombian farmland was cleared in recent decades, 'in some areas of Scotland you haven't had forests for maybe 1,000 years,' she says, potentially leaving trees with little fungal life to support them, making them more vulnerable to drought and other stresses. Across the British Isles, a number of efforts to restore rainforests are now under way. At Bowden Pillars, a 30-hectare 'rainforest creation' site in Totnes, the Devon Wildlife Trust (DWT) commissioned soil analysis to help to understand the impact of historical use of the site has had on the land, says Claire Inglis, nature reserve officer at DWT. Although volunteers have already planted more than 2,500 trees, the project aims first and foremost to design ways that seeds and fungi can spread naturally, as 'natural colonisation is always your most resilient option for future woodland,' says Inglis, adding that they were still only beginning to understand how to restore fungal communities. More hands-on measures have been considered by the DWT and the National Trust, which is restoring rainforest in north Devon. These include soil restoration by 'inoculation', either by adding scoops of soil from intact ecosystems when trees are planted or by transplanting fungal spores. Felicity Roos, a soil consultant at the National Trust, says: 'In the right circumstances, restoring degraded landscapes and soils, inoculants can play an important role in restoration.' Commercial biofertilisers claiming to contain mycorrhizal spores are now a business worth billions, but scientific studies have shown the majority of products contain dead or ineffective spores, with some also containing pathogens, or disease-causing micro-organisms. Such restoration projects underscore the importance of preserving remnants such as Ballachuan, and other reserves or fragments of rainforest around the world. These ancient patches act as 'refugia': reservoirs of fungi that can then act as a source to spread across the patchwork of different habitat types – farmland, developed land, semi-natural wild land – that surround it. Much of the UK's temperate rainforest is fragmented into these small pieces on land belonging to different farmers and estates. Satori says restoration will require reconnecting these across the whole landscape so as to have bridges that allow not just fungi but animals and insects to travel across the land. 'Having these interconnected landscapes is definitely going to be the best way to move forward,' he says. 'It's very much a long-term vision.'
BBC News
26-07-2025
- BBC News
Kew Gardens opens exhibition focused on supporting the planet
A new attraction opened at Kew Gardens on Friday, featuring 6,500 new plants and 35 Carbon Garden shows how carbon helps to sustain life on Earth, the scale of the climate crisis and how nature can be used to combat it. It aims to inspire visitors to take actions in their everyday lives to support the planet and educate them about how plants and fungi act as "natural allies in climate repair" by capturing carbon and restoring said the attraction was one of its most ambitious garden projects in recent years. Work to build it was carried out this year, after Richmond Council approved the scheme in 2024. The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) said visitors with a ticket to Kew Gardens can enter the garden at no extra cost and will see a colourful display of plants reflecting the dramatic rise in average global temperatures over is a fungi-inspired pavilion in the centre of the garden, with a sloping canopy directing rainwater into the rain garden and sheltered space to host school visits and community activities.A feature also shows layers of soil, a rocky outcrop and a layer of coal in the Earth's crust with fossilised plants revealing the hidden world of carbon underground, the LDRS Wilford, designer of the Carbon Garden and manager of garden design at Kew, said: "The Carbon Garden offers a unique opportunity to showcase our ongoing research, combining scientific insight with thoughtful design and beautiful planting to highlight the role of carbon in our lives, how it moves through the environment and how plants and fungi can help us tackle climate change."We hope the Carbon Garden inspires visitors to act and join us in shaping a more sustainable, resilient future for life on our planet."
