Latest news with #mycology
Forbes
24-07-2025
- Science
- Forbes
Fungi, Carbon, And The Climate Risk Map We Missed
Abundant worldwide, most fungi are inconspicuous because of the small size of their structures, and ... More their cryptic lifestyles in soil or on dead matter. Fungi include symbionts of plants, animals, or other fungi and also parasites. They may become noticeable when fruiting, either as mushrooms or as moulds. Fungi perform an essential role in the decomposition of organic matter and have fundamental roles in nutrient cycling and exchange in the environment. The discipline of biology devoted to the study of fungi is known as mycology (from the Greek μύκης mykes, mushroom). In the past, mycology was regarded as a branch of botany, although it is now known fungi are genetically more closely related to animals than to plants. Soil fungi may not have ticker symbols but they move carbon at planetary scale, drawing an estimated 13 billion tons of CO₂ into the soil each year, equivalent to nearly a third of global fossil fuel emissions. And yet, they've been almost entirely absent from climate risk models, ESG reports, and conservation agendas. Scientists from the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) have released the first-ever high-resolution global maps of mycorrhizal fungal biodiversity, alongside the launch of a groundbreaking public platform called the Underground Atlas. The research, published in the journal Nature, marks the first large-scale scientific application of the global mapping initiative launched by SPUN in 2021. Built using over 2.8 billion fungal DNA sequences from 130 countries, the Atlas reveals a profound oversight: more than 90% of the planet's most diverse underground carbon ecosystems are unprotected. 'Soils store 75% of Earth's terrestrial carbon and contain ~59% of Earth's biodiversity. Yet, we've neglected to map, monitor, and protect fungal systems,' says Dr. Toby Kiers, executive director of SPUN. 'With the Underground Atlas, we're making these invisible networks visible, and therefore measurable.' The Underground Carbon Crisis Mycorrhizal fungi form vast underground networks that connect and sustain over 90% of all terrestrial plant species, channelling nutrients, supporting food systems, biodiversity, and ecosystem resilience. Critically, they also draw carbon from plants into the soil, playing a major role in carbon sequestration and climate regulation. But until now, these fungal networks have gone unmapped and unmonitored, and the implications of this are significant. 'We were surprised to learn that fungal biodiversity didn't align with traditional conservation indicators like plant richness,' says Dr. Kiers. 'That means we're missing high-value underground ecosystems that are being degraded or lost, increasing global warming and disrupting nutrient cycles.' The Atlas will also be critical in leveraging fungi to regenerate degraded ecosystems. 'Restoration practices have been dangerously incomplete because the focus has historically been on life aboveground,' said Dr. Alex Wegmann a lead scientist for The Nature Conservancy. 'These high-resolution maps provide quantitative targets for restoration managers to establish what diverse mycorrhizal communities could and should look like." Urgent action is needed to incorporate findings into international biodiversity law and policy. For example, the Ghanaian coast is a global hotspot for mycorrhizal biodiversity. But the country's coastline is eroding at roughly two meters per year and scientists are concerned that such critical biodiversity could soon be washed into the sea. To build the Underground Atlas, SPUN and partners used machine learning models trained on billions of environmental DNA sequences, geospatial data, and climate variables. For the first time, decision-makers, restoration managers, and investors can explore mycorrhizal biodiversity at a 1km² scale, enabling them to identify high-value underground ecosystems that are critical to carbon cycling, crop resilience, and biodiversity. 'This is the most data-rich global compilation of fungal eDNA ever assembled,' says Dr. Michael Van Nuland, SPUN's lead data scientist. 'There just aren't many high-resolution global maps for soil organisms, especially for ecosystem engineers like fungi.' The Atlas can make biodiversity predictions even in unsampled areas, identifying fungal richness, rarity, and degradation risk. This will enable regulators and restoration practitioners to anticipate biodiversity loss and carbon vulnerability at a landscape scale. SPUN is already working with early adopters across conservation, restoration, and legal sectors, and has observer status at the upcoming UN COP16 biodiversity summit. Implications For ESG And Restoration The new maps reveal a critical blind spot for companies and governments relying on nature-based solutions, sustainable agriculture, and biodiversity finance. 'Conservation is about protecting the systems that sustain life, and those systems don't stop at the soil surface,' says Dr. Rebecca Shaw, chief scientist at WWF. 'Healthy fungal networks are tied to higher aboveground biodiversity and greater ecosystem resilience.' Dr. Shaw says the maps should be incorporated into frameworks like the 30x30 biodiversity targets, National Biodiversity Strategies (NBSAPs), and even carbon markets. 'Much like the human gut microbiome transformed medicine, the soil microbiome is essential for planetary health,' she says. 'We must start incorporating these maps into our conservation plans, including at WWF.' She emphasizes that mycorrhizal fungi need to be recognized as a priority in the 'library of solutions' to some of the world's greatest challenges, biodiversity decline, climate change, and declining food productivity. 'They deliver powerful ecosystem services whose benefits flow directly to people. This research should help elevate the protection and restoration of fungi and their networks to the top of conservation priorities.' 'This research maps where fungal communities are thriving or under threat,' she continues. 'There is an opportunity to integrate this knowledge into decision-making about building resilience into our food systems.' These insights are also guiding restoration and corporate risk assessments. SPUN is currently piloting a project with a corporate partner to evaluate the use of mycorrhizal biodiversity assessments in material supply chains. 'This is helping us understand both the economic applications for our data and how these collaborations can contribute valuable information back to our global database,' says Dr. Van Nuland. Soil fungi aren't just climate assets, they're agricultural assets. Research shows mycelial networks can reduce nutrient leaching by up to 50% and supply up to 80% of a plant's phosphorus needs, positioning fungi as vital components of sustainable farming. Incorporating fungal biodiversity into agricultural planning offers a powerful hedge against food system risk, helping companies navigate fertilizer volatility, regulatory pressures, and the growing need to demonstrate climate-resilient practices. For businesses navigating nature risk, this may be the data layer they didn't know they needed. Soil fungi are also being considered in legal and regulatory contexts. 'Underground biodiversity is included in the Convention on Biological Diversity,' says César Rodríguez-Garavito, director of NYU's More-Than-Human Life Program. 'But in practice, policies have focused almost entirely on aboveground ecosystems.' Because fungal networks have been invisible in climate law, activities that disrupt them have gone largely unregulated, with serious consequences for carbon storage, soil health, and legal accountability. 'By making visible the presence of climate-significant soil fungi, this data can help prevent climate impacts that stem from their destruction,' he explains. A litigation toolkit is also in development with NYU Law to help Indigenous communities protect underground ecosystems threatened by extraction. Changing The Climate Narrative Beyond risk and regulation, the Underground Atlas offers something deeper: a new way of seeing and valuing ecosystems. 'Fungi have long been overlooked because they don't fit neatly into our mental models,' says Dr. Merlin Sheldrake, SPUN's director of impact and author of Entangled Life. 'These tools help us overcome that blindness and see fungi as living infrastructure.' The implications go beyond science or policy, they touch how we define intelligence, resilience and value in the natural world. While forests and coral reefs have long symbolized ecological richness, the quiet complexity of underground fungal networks has rarely captured public imagination or financial attention. That's beginning to change. 'When we understand that fungi store carbon, support biodiversity, and regulate water flows, we begin to grasp that protecting them is a matter of long-term value, not just ecological virtue.' Sheldrake argues that these maps are not just analytical tools, they are conceptual ones, helping businesses and governments see what sustainability has missed. Recognizing fungi as climate infrastructure could shift how nature is factored into risk models, insurance products, and even accounting frameworks in the years to come. Dr Van Nuland says that while the current launch represents the project's first major milestone, this is only the beginning. SPUN is currently working on more than 10 additional mapping pipelines that will expand the platform's capabilities, including maps of mycorrhizal carbon drawdown hotspots, underground threat assessments, and restoration potential analyses. 'We're only beginning to explore the economic and ecological uses of this data,' he says. 'We want to discover new applications and we're inviting researchers, funders, and policymakers to help us.' In a world increasingly focused on risk, resilience, and real assets, the lesson is clear: funghi, and the fungal networks beneath our feet, are the billion-ton blind spot we can no longer afford to ignore.
ABC News
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
The enigma of the mushroom
Alison Pouliot spends her time exploring the world's mysterious and alluring third kingdom: the realm of mushrooms and fungi. Fungi are not part of the animal world, and they're not part of the plant kingdom. They are so different, fascinating and unknown to us that they get their own classification. They have given us many gifts, from penicillin to food, but can also be poisonous, scary, toxic and parasitic. Underground is where their most interesting, and intimate work takes place. Further Information Alison's latest book, Funga Obscura, and her previous book, Underground Lovers, are both published by NewSouth. See some of Alison's videos and photography here. Originally broadcast in March 2023. Find out more about the Conversations Live National Tour on the ABC website.
CBC
25-05-2025
- Science
- CBC
This researcher wants your help mapping Atlantic Canada's mushrooms
This researcher is fascinated with fungi and he's enlisting the public to find out more about what he calls an understudied life form. Alfredo Justo, who is currently the curator of botany and mycology at the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John, is leading a mission to document every mushroom species in Atlantic Canada. Justo knows it's a lofty goal — that's why he isn't doing it alone. The MycoMap Atlantic Canada Network is open to anyone living in or visiting Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. "The basic steps are quite easy if you are out there, looking for mushrooms," Justo told CBC Radio's The St. John's Morning Show. According to Justo, becoming a "community scientist" is as simple as taking a photo of a mushroom and uploading it along with a description to the project's website and spreadsheet. He will also personally accept any dried specimens found in Newfoundland and Labrador or New Brunswick and then attempt to map its DNA before housing them in the New Brunswick Museum. Mushrooms found in other provinces would be handled by other scientists involved in the project, he says. There are at least 3,000 different species of mushrooms in Atlantic Canada, Justo says, but less than 25 per cent of them have been documented. "We have a good knowledge about plants and big animals like birds or mammals, but mushrooms are very difficult to study," said Justo. "They are very tricky." Tracking DNA would help scientists figure out the exact number and types of species found in certain provinces, and where they thrive. Justo says this province's boreal forest and unique climate makes it home to mushrooms that are not typically found anywhere else. However, he says it's difficult to pinpoint the rarity of a species because of how little information is available right now. He's looking forward to seeing the discoveries people make with the MycoMap project. "It has been, for me, a scavenger hunt that has been going on for over 25 years now," said Justo.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Calling all fungi fans: the New Brunswick Museum needs your help
If you've ever dreamed of being a mushroom scientist, now is your chance. The New Brunswick Museum is starting a citizen science project to document the varieties of mushrooms in Atlantic Canada. Alfredo Justo, the museum's curator of botany and mycology, is leading the project and says he needs help. "This is going to be a big, years-long — if not decades-long — project," Justo told CBC Radio's Information Morning Saint John. "So we need all the help we can get from people interested in biodiversity and citizen scientists." Justo said getting involved starts in the field. "If you see a mushroom that looks interesting, or if you're actively collecting mushrooms, just take some photographs of the mushrooms, keep the mushrooms as if you were foraging. The difference is that you're going to preserve it for scientific study," he said. Justo said the collected mushrooms need to be dried using a dehydrator or fan at 60 C or below for 12 to 24 hours. They can be stored in a small plastic bag and then mailed to the museum. A portion of the mushrooms will become a part of the project's collection, while a small bit will be used for DNA sequencing. LISTEN | Mycology curator explains how citizen scientists can help gather mushroom data: Justo said the project is important because there are a lot of unknowns about the mycology of Atlantic Canada. "Mushrooms are really under studied, especially when we compare what we know about plants or big animals," he said. Justo said there are an estimated 3,000 species of mushrooms in the region, which is double the estimated number of plant species. But, there are only 10,000 mushroom samples at the New Brunswick Museum and 40,000 plant samples, "so, you see the disparity there," he said. "We need to get a lot of collections, just to get to the same baseline data that we have for plants or birds or mammals." Justo said the project will aim to bring our knowledge of fungi at the same level as other species and will help scientists in the future understand changes in the mushroom landscape in Atlantic Canada. "We will be able — in the future — to look back and say, 'Oh, this species was at this place 10 years ago. Is the species still there?'" For more information on the project and how to take part, visit
CBC
25-05-2025
- Science
- CBC
Calling all fungi fans: the New Brunswick Museum needs your help
If you've ever dreamed of being a mushroom scientist, now is your chance. The New Brunswick Museum is starting a citizen science project to document the varieties of mushrooms in Atlantic Canada. Alfredo Justo, the museum's curator of botany and mycology, is leading the project and says he needs help. "This is going to be a big, years-long — if not decades-long — project," Justo told CBC Radio's Information Morning Saint John. "So we need all the help we can get from people interested in biodiversity and citizen scientists." Justo said getting involved starts in the field. "If you see a mushroom that looks interesting, or if you're actively collecting mushrooms, just take some photographs of the mushrooms, keep the mushrooms as if you were foraging. The difference is that you're going to preserve it for scientific study," he said. Justo said the collected mushrooms need to be dried using a dehydrator or fan at 60 C or below for 12 to 24 hours. They can be stored in a small plastic bag and then mailed to the museum. A portion of the mushrooms will become a part of the project's collection, while a small bit will be used for DNA sequencing. Justo said the project is important because there are a lot of unknowns about the mycology of Atlantic Canada. "Mushrooms are really under studied, especially when we compare what we know about plants or big animals," he said. Justo said there are an estimated 3,000 species of mushrooms in the region, which is double the estimated number of plant species. But, there are only 10,000 mushroom samples at the New Brunswick Museum and 40,000 plant samples, "so, you see the disparity there," he said. "We need to get a lot of collections, just to get to the same baseline data that we have for plants or birds or mammals." Justo said the project will aim to bring our knowledge of fungi at the same level as other species and will help scientists in the future understand changes in the mushroom landscape in Atlantic Canada. "We will be able — in the future — to look back and say, 'Oh, this species was at this place 10 years ago. Is the species still there?'"
