Merlin Sheldrake
Mycology’s first megastar, and author of best-selling eye-opener Entangled Life, Merlin is here to blow your mind about toadstools.
FUNGI MAKE US react in the strangest way: a woozy mix of delight, revulsion and intrigue. Some walkers will salivate, others feel their stomach churn. Is there any other species that combines beauty, weirdness and danger so emotively? Possibly not.
We might think of fungi as a seasonal phenomenon, a transitory sign of autumn. But in fact, fungi are intimately enmeshed in almost every aspect of biological life on this planet, in every second that passes. And no-one is keener for you to know that than Merlin Sheldrake. A Cambridge-educated mycologist, he’s the author of Entangled Life, an eye-opening book which sets out everything science knows about fungi – and reveals just how much remains unknown.
“The problem – and the beauty – of fungi is the mystery that surrounds them,” explains Merlin. “Ninety percent of global fungal species remain undocumented. They mostly lie hidden in the ground in mycelial networks which are normally outside the reach of our unaided senses. They behave in ways we don’t understand and often can’t predict.
“Science is getting better at understanding fungi*, but there is a very long way to go.”
Merlin’s interest was sparked at the age of six, when he developed a fascination with fungi, and in particular, their talent for decomposition.
“It’s an incredible transformative process; it was observably taking place but it was overseen by organisms I couldn’t see,” he recalls. “To me it seemed like a superpower, and it still does.”
He has since spent his life in pursuit of answers. His journey has taken him from Central America to Canada to Asia, and seen him conduct every form of experiment from ingesting mushroom-derived LSD to feeding his own book to a colony of mushrooms – then eating the mushrooms.
He’s cross that fungi are the overlooked child of the natural world. Despite the fact they pre-date the plant kingdom (“they were waiting on land when the first algal species left the oceans, and provided the nutrients to nurse plants into existence”), fungi were simply grouped in with plants when it came to scientific classification, right up to the late Sixties.
And for centuries, it was presumed that fungi were little more than parasites. Only in recent decades have scientists discovered that many common species actually exist in collaboration with plants. They send out tiny tubes known as hyphae*, which weave into the tips of plant roots at a cellular level then combine to create a mycorrhiza*: a complex, collaborative network which has earned the nickname of the Wood Wide Web. The web passes nutrients, impulses, even information and warnings of danger, across multiple species and over vast areas.
And fungi can be really smart. Merlin’s book relates experiments in which fungal tendrils have found the most efficient route through mazes; some fungal-based slime moulds have even ‘followed’ maps of Roman roads and the Tokyo subway, mimicking human networks in organic form.
Merlin also believes fungi will play a vital role in our future.
“There are so many ways fungi can help us, whether it be fungal medicines, or fungal extracts helping bees to overcome colony collapse disorder, or fungal building materials that can replace plastics,” he explains.
“But there are also lots of ways in which fungi could make things harder for us. For example, as the global temperature increases, fungal pathogens might be able to move into areas where they could not go before. They could then kill off large areas of forest, which could in turn be digested by other types of fungi, releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide. Fungi are brilliant opportunists and will make the best of the situations they are presented with. We need to think around that.”
Much of Merlin’s book finds him on a quest to think like a fungus; to anticipate its next move, or work out where he’ll find a rare species thriving. He’s also openly in awe of the skill and efficiency of the mycorrhizal network.
So does he think we’d be in a happier place as a planet if we could ‘be more fungal’?
“Yes,” is the short answer.
“We can think about the importance of robust, decentralised networks, and how to build regenerative systems rather than unsustainable, disposable systems. And we should use more fungal metaphors in everyday life.
“There’s almost no sector of human life, from global warming to fashion, where they don’t have something to teach us.”