Scientists show bright side of fungi
Varied organisms have many benefits for life
LONDON — The scientists at the renowned Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew are trying to correct an injustice: They don’t believe fungus gets the respect it deserves.
That’s one reason behind the release Wednesday of their “State of the World’s Fungi ” report, touted as the first ever global look at the way fungi help provide food, medicine, plant nutrition, lifesaving drugs — and can also spread death and destruction at an alarming pace.
The focus on fungi is designed to call attention to potentially vital new uses now being studied — including possible deployment of a fungus that “eats” plastic and degrades it quickly, and one that may clean up radioactive waste — and to warn that climate change is threatening fungi habitat in various parts of the Earth.
Director of Science Katherine Willis says researchers know relatively little about fungi — many of them hidden beneath the ground, or invisible to the naked eye, or living in a plant’s cells — even though fungus has been used to ferment food and drink for more than 9,000 years.
“We have only just started to scratch the surface of knowledge of this incredible and diverse group of organisms,” she said.
“When looking for nature-based solutions to some of our most critical global challenges, fungi could provide many of the answers. We ignore it at our peril.”
She argues that fungi have a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde profile: Helping 90 percent of the world’s plants get nutrients, while at the same time doing irreversible damage to some ecosystems. Ash dieback fungus, for example, has spread from Poland throughout much of Europe and now threatens not just the ash tree but 955 other species.
The report says climate change is already having an impact on fungi reproduction, distribution and activity, but Willis cautioned that much more research is needed.
The focus on fungus is new, but Kew’s astonishing collection of fungi samples goes back to the days of evolution theorist Charles Darwin and children’s author Beatrix Potter.
Kew is known for taking a comprehensive approach to field research, but that is impossible in this case. There are up to 3.8 million species of fungi, but only about 144,000 have been identified.