It’s been another busy season in the underground. We added a new cohort of 39 grantees to our Underground Explorers program, completed sampling in the Mongolian desert, and embarked on two expeditions in Colombia’s cloud forests. We are now preparing for sampling in Ecuador, together with NYU’s More Than Human Life Project, Fungi Foundation and the Original Kichwa People of Sarayaku.
Field notes
Underground Explorers Program
We have added our largest cohort ever of Underground Explorers. On July 18, we hosted our 39 new grantees for their kick-off session. This cohort adds Explorers from 26 different countries, including Uganda, Uzbekistan, Honduras, Bhutan, Morocco, and Iran. You can look at the new Explorers and their project locations here.
NYC Climate Week & Convention on Biological Diversity
From September 22-29, we will be attending Climate Week in New York City and at the end of October, we will be attending CBD COP16 as official observers. If you are attending either event and you want to connect, send an email to hello@spun.earth.
Colombia
In July, SPUN, led by Dr. Adriana Corrales, set out on a week-long expedition in the Colombian Andes to visit the cloud forests of Huila and sampled amongst black oak trees to study their associated mycorrhizal fungi. The Colombian black oak is an endemic tree that is on the IUCN red list, and we want to determine the diversity of mycorrhizal fungi associated with it and identify fungi that may be critical to the species’ survival.
Photo: SPUN/Andrés Pacheco - La Cueva CineIn the field, samples had to be rushed into a container filled with -196°C  liquid nitrogen so that the RNA present in the soil wouldn’t degrade in the heat of the rainforest. Back in the lab, we will use metatranscriptomics and metabarcoding to better understand the identity and function of the fungi that live belowground. Despite being one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth, to our knowledge, not a single tropical ectomycorrhizal mushroom genome has ever been sequenced.
Photo: SPUN/Andrés Pacheco - La Cueva CineIn the cloud forest, temperatures were high, and there were days with oppressive rain and storms. We spent many hours traversing dirt roads to reach black oak trees in their preferred remote locations high in the mountains. The final day of sampling was completed with a cable car ride through the lush green hills that produce some of the world’s best coffee.
Photo: SPUN/Adriana CorralesThis study is supported by the Joint Genome Institute and is in collaboration with the Franklinia Foundation and Dr. Francis Martin of INRAE. During our field excursions we connected with local coffee growers as well as local experts working in conservation. We hope this work will help fill a giant gap in global knowledge about the functional role of tropical ectomycorrhizal fungi.
Mapping videos
Have you ever wondered how we are making our maps? You can learn about how we prioritize expedition locations, how we use uncertainty to help strengthen our models, and how we are mapping threats to fungi on our new Mapping Page.
Research & explainers
We have launched a new section on our website. Keep an eye on our Research Page to stay up to date with the latest publications from our team and new articles explaining our science and impact.
SPUN in the news
Forbes - “How Can Fungus In Cameroon Help Farmers?”
Underground Explorer Astride Carole Djeuani from Cameroon is looking at how fungus could be used as fertilizer to improve plant production for farmers.
Cosmos - “Fungal partners’ failure to move spells trouble for trees”
Trees may find their migration to more suitable climates restricted by the absence of vital passengers crucial to their survival. As world climates shift amid the increase in global temperatures due to anthropogenic carbon emissions, many plants and animals are moving into more suitable habitats for their growth and protection. But trees appear to be taking longer to make those shifts.
Forbes - "These Scientists Are Racing Against Time To Find Rare Fungi In Ghana”
An international group of researchers, including Underground Explorer Jacob Ulzen from Ghana, are in a race against time to discover and preserve fungi species before they are lost to rising seas. Agriculture is key to the economy of Ghana: making up over half of its GDP, 40% of exports and with about 4 in 10 farm laborers being women—and fungi could be a key to help farmers and alleviate food insecurity.
On our radar
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ICOM12
We are excited to attend ICOM12 in Manchester this month. If you are attending, please come say hi to us at our booth and ask about our limited edition t-shirts!
Papers we’re reading
PeerJ "Innovative infrastructure to access Brazilian fungal diversity using deep learning“- Chaves et al. produced a database of 12,894 images of 505 distinct species of macrofungi from Brazil to enable deep-learning based identification of fungi. They aim to develop a mobile app with the goal of democratizing fungal knowledge in Brazil.
Scientific Data “Global Spore Sampling Project: A global, standardized dataset of airborne fungal DNA” -Ovaskainen et al. introduce the Global Spore Sampling Project (GSSP), a large, open-source dataset of fungal DNA from spore samples collected around the globe. The GSSP contains information on the spatial distributions of over 27,000 species, making it a valuable resource for the study of fungal macroecology.
New Phytologist “Ectomycorrhizal fungi of Douglas-fir retain newly assimilated carbon derived from neighboring European beech” - Audisio et al. designed an experiment to track C sharing in a common ectomycorrhizal (ECM) network. They found that ECM fungi connected to different tree hosts share C among themselves, but not with recipient trees. They also show that the amount of fungal C sharing relates to the number of ECM species shared between tree hosts.
Database “EUKARYOME: the rRNA gene reference database for identification of all eukaryotes” - Tedersoo et al. brought together eukaryotic rDNA sequence data from environmental DNA studies and existing databases. Eukaryome is a comprehensive database containing sequences of the commonly-used rDNA genes SSU, LSU, and ITS, and is the first database to include sequences that span these regions produced through third-generation sequencing technologies.
Upcoming events
International Conference on Mycorrhiza (ICOM)
August 6 - 11 | Manchester, UK
NYC Climate Week
September 22 - 29 | New York City, USA
CBD COP16
October 21 - November 1 | Cali, Colombia
Field work
Are you interested in participating in fungal research? Many researchers are currently running projects in diverse fields of environmental mycology. Check them out on our Associates Page.
If you’re a mycorrhizal researcher who is interested in becoming a SPUN Associate, you can fill out this form to apply.
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