Protect Species Podcast
This podcast is a production of the Global Center for Species Survival, which is a partnership between the Indianapolis Zoo and the International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission (IUCN SSC). We record all episodes at the Indianapolis Zoo in the Bedel Financial Media Studio, made possible by a generous gift from Elaine and Eric Bedel.
Protect Species Podcast
More Than Mushrooms: Dr. Greg Mueller Talks About the Fungus Among Us
Fungi are so much more than JUST mushrooms. Dr. Greg Mueller, former Chief Scientist at the Chicago Botanic Garden and current Chair of the IUCN SSC Fungal Conservation Committee, has a lot to say about the "fungus among us." And, spoiler, he's a FUN GUY!
In this episode of the Protect Species Podcast, we explore a world beyond pizza toppings. Fungi play a critical role as nature’s decomposers. From mycelium bricks to synthetic fungal leather, and even their role in cleaning up environmental disasters through bioremediation, fungi are the unsung heroes of the natural world!
Dr. Mueller brings to light the significant conservation challenges fungi face, largely due to habitat loss and climate change. We discuss the intricacies of fungi/plant relationships and how they are crucial for reforestation success, emphasizing the need for a holistic approach to conservation that integrates soil health and forest ecosystems. This episode also unpacks the fascinating process of nutrient and signal exchange between plants and fungi, dispelling myths and highlighting scientific realities.
We think you'll agree that Dr. Mueller is a passionate fungi expert, who shares his enthusiasm and insights, leaving us with a playful yet profound appreciation of the fungal kingdom.
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Additional links:
Chicago Botanic Garden
IUCN SSC Fungal Conservation Committee
The Fungus Among Us - Protect Species Blog
Fungi are a hot topic right now. After all, who doesn't love mushrooms? For example, in a mushroom stroganoff, mushroom risotto? But this massive kingdom of life is largely out of sight, out of mind. We're joined by Dr Greg Mueller, Chief Scientist at the Chicago Botanic Garden and Chair of the IUCN-SSC Fungal Conservation Committee. I'm Moni Boom and I'm Moni Boom.
Justin Birkhoff:And I'm Justin Birkhoff. Welcome to the Protect Species podcast, where we celebrate biodiversity and converse with conservationists.
Monni Böhm:Justin, I'm so excited we're talking mushrooms.
Justin Birkhoff:Yeah, this should be a lot of fun.
Monni Böhm:Do you like mushrooms on pizza? What's your favorite pizza topping?
Justin Birkhoff:It's got to be mushrooms, don't know if mushrooms my favorite pizza topping, but it's definitely in the mix, I think pepperoni, pepperoni is always a winner pepperoni and mushroom, oh yes.
Monni Böhm:What about pineapple? I know this is like controversial it's not controversial, it's wonderful oh, I love you a little bit more now just pineapple and some pepperoni.
Justin Birkhoff:You get the sweet and the salty. It's really.
Monni Böhm:It's really the way to go and obviously throw in some fungi, just, you know, as a sort of more neutral accompaniment yeah, do they add something?
Justin Birkhoff:depends on the on the mushroom.
Monni Böhm:Generally, the ones you find on pizza are pretty, pretty neutral would you prefer a vegetarian burger or just a nice big chunky portobello mushroom on a barbecue?
Justin Birkhoff:It depends on where it comes from. I like both.
Monni Böhm:Where it comes from.
Justin Birkhoff:Yeah, Some veggie burgers are really kind of disappointing Mama vegetarian burger and daddy vegetarian burger loved each other very much.
Monni Böhm:Yes, that's exactly what I meant. I assume that's where they come from.
Justin Birkhoff:The story is old as time.
Monni Böhm:So who are we talking today?
Justin Birkhoff:We're going to be talking to Greg today. I'm excited. I'm very excited. Have you met Greg?
Monni Böhm:yet I have not met Greg. Greg's a legend.
Justin Birkhoff:I've experienced Greg a little bit on some of our group calls and he's very warm, he's very insightful and I think it's very obvious that he has a really big influence in our space within the IUCN and the steering committee. But everything else I've heard about him is that he's a very warm, friendly man and I'm very much interested to hear more about what he has to say about fungi. He seems to be kind of our go-to expert for a variety of reasons, so I am very much looking forward to speaking to him today.
Monni Böhm:Yeah, no, you will not be disappointed. He's awesome, and if fungi need a voice, I think he's going to be really awesome, that's good.
Justin Birkhoff:He loves them and, like many people, most of my experience with fungi is around the food, so it's eating them as mushrooms and that sort of thing. So I'm excited to hear a little bit more about the parts of the fungal world that we don't necessarily see as lay people, because, as much as we're both in conservation, fungi is a kingdom that I know very little about.
Monni Böhm:I mean to be quite honest as lay people. Most of the time we don't see any fungi. That's true A lot of the magic happens out of sight.
Justin Birkhoff:Yeah, so that should be fun.
Monni Böhm:I'm very much looking forward to it. So yeah, let's see what Greg has to say for us. Absolutely, let's do it and think about pizza.
Justin Birkhoff:Oh, always thinking about pizza, yeah, okay. So let's start with the hard question what are fungi, greg? So?
Greg Mueller:fungi, fungi, fungi, whatever you want to call them, you know, tomato, tomato are a separate kingdom of life, on par with animals, plants and other kingdoms. They are characterized, I guess, primarily by their nutrition, If you think of it. Animals ingest food, they eat food. Animals ingest food. They eat food and then digest that inside their body. Plants make food by photosynthesizing. Fungi actually grow through their food, exude chemicals to digest the material outside and then absorb the food into them. So they, that's, I think, one of the big differences between animals, plants and fungi. And fungi then constitute ah estimated two to four million species, ranging from single-celled to things that you can actually see from the, from an airplane, so really. And from very short-lived to over 1,000 years old, so quite a lot of diversity.
Justin Birkhoff:Yeah, definitely, that's a huge amount of diversity.
Monni Böhm:So really it doesn't matter if we say fungi or fungi or fungi. Can we call you the fungi?
Greg Mueller:You can call me the fungi, sure. Your fungal highness, we're in the US, so I guess fungi would be the more typical way to say it. Uh, depending on where I am in the world, I just pick up whichever way is being pronounced there. But pizza works here.
Monni Böhm:I know it has pizza fungi in italy, so there you go, there you go. No, that's, that's great. Um, so you already mentioned how enormously weird and wonderful the diversity of fungi is. Can you tell us a little bit about? I mean, most people will probably know them as something that comes in their food. That's probably how we mainly know fungi. What role do they play in the ecosystems where they live? They surely must be doing a lot more than just appear on pizza.
Greg Mueller:Yeah, appear on pizza. Yeah, so not only do they have this incredible morphological variation, diversity in shapes and sizes and forms, and sheer numbers of species, but ecologically they do a variety of things. We normally think of fungi as rotters, as decomposers. Right, so they do. They decompose organic material okay, oftentimes dead organic material. So in nature, that's important. It breaks down dead wood, leaves, carcasses, things like that. For people, they sometimes don't like it because it breaks down timber and dry rot in houses, or that orange that you left in the back of your refrigerator for too long and molding that. But it's. You know, the fungi don't differentiate between man-made objects and natural objects. So that's one group, these decomposers, natural objects. So that's one group of these decomposers.
Greg Mueller:And then fungi get a bad rap because some of them are pathogens or parasites. A relatively small percentage of species are this. And then pathogens get a bad rap as well, at least plant pathogens because we think of them, at least plant pathogens because we think of them. You know, anything that kills things is bad. But if you think of a natural forest, you need to have diverse age demographics. You're going to have older trees and younger trees, and so something has to sit there and take out some of the older trees.
Greg Mueller:Where pathogens become a problem is when you have a monoculture, you know a set of one species of tree that goes for miles and miles and miles, and then you get an invasive fungus that comes in there and wipes out all of those trees. That's bad, but in a natural system pathogens actually play an important role in maintaining healthy ecosystems. But the other thing fungi do is that they farm these wonderful symbioses, these critically important, mutually beneficial relationships with mostly with plants, but with some animals as well. And so the two most common that people are probably familiar with. One are lichens Lichens is a symbiosis between an alga or a cyanobacteria, or both in a fungus, and then the other is mycorrhizae, which is this relationship between certain fungi and the roots of plants, and somewhere around 85% of all plants on the planet form mycorrhizae, with some subset of fungi so critically important. The fungi can't survive without their host plant and the plants can't survive without their host fungus.
Monni Böhm:We were a little bit terrestrial. Right now, are there also fungi in well marine and freshwater systems?
Greg Mueller:Yes, there are, so there are newly-aged. There are a number of fungi in aquatic systems. In freshwater. They're breaking down the detritus that's in the water, right. They're breaking down the leaf material and the sticks and whatever else that's in there the dead fish, things like that. In marine systems they're really important. In coastal systems and estuaries and things like that. They're important for that and estuaries and things like that. They're important for that. But we also now find, recently, deep sea fungi that have been obtained by environmental DNA. Right, because nobody's down deep enough, but what do you think is breaking down those dead whale carcasses that go to the bottom of the sea, or some of the ships that fell? It turns out there's these fungi, many of those we only know from the DNA. Nobody's seen them, no one knows exactly what they look like, but we have their DNA signature and we know that they're discrete species that are doing these incredibly important ecological roles in deep seas. So, yeah, there is probably no place on Earth. Maybe in actual deep ice, probably not, but otherwise, yeah, they're there.
Justin Birkhoff:Excellent. So, Greg, you mentioned the kind of intimate relationship that fungi has with plants, or a lot of fungi have with plants, and I think one thing that is kind of interesting and eludes a lot of people is where fungi fall in the tree of life. You know, so, you know, we have, we have animals, we have plants, and then fungi are something else. Where do they kind of sit in the spectrum between the two? I mean, obviously it's a distinct, you know, distinct, you know group of life forms in and of itself. But you know, if we were to say, you know how do they relate to animals and how do they relate to plants?
Greg Mueller:Yeah, great question, justin. So until the mid to late 60s they were just lumped into the plant kingdom completely. We've, you know, since then recognized that they're a separate kingdom and, what's fascinating, they are actually closely related to animals than they are to plants. Okay, so it's interesting, you know, kind of isn't that cool that fungi are more closely related to animals than plants. But it has important implications as well. So there are fungal diseases, and one of the reasons that fungal diseases are oftentimes more difficult to treat than bacterial diseases is because, since they are closely related to animals, you want to kill the fungus but not kill the patient. And so that relationship, so understanding relationships among organisms, has very practical, important implications. It's not just a scientific interest, but understanding where they are in the tree of life really has implications for management, for disease treatment, for all kinds of things. So yeah, fungi had a common ancestor with animals, okay.
Monni Böhm:That's really fascinating. No, it really really is. My mind is blown. My mind was already blown when you told us that you know there's aquatic fungi and now it's kind of completely mushed, this whole brain of mine, with all of this.
Justin Birkhoff:And yeah, it makes sense that fungal diseases are more difficult to treat than that, I think one of the other things that's interesting about that is, when we think about animals, we think generally about things that are breathing air, right Like. So you know, this aerobic experience that we're all very used to is. You know, we require air for so much of life, and there are some animals that can survive with less air. But the idea that a deep-sea species of fungi that's more akin to an animal than it is to a plant survives in a completely anaerobic or oxygen-less environment is just kind of wild, for lack of a better word. But that's not the only place you have anaerobic fungi, that's true.
Greg Mueller:So in your lumens of cows and goats and any luminance, there are a whole suite of anaerobic fungi that are essential for breaking down the plant material that these critters are eating. So we didn't even know about those for a while, because as soon as you expose them to oxygen they die. So the research on them has to be done in an oxygen-free chamber and they're difficult to work with. But it's really cool. There's this whole suite of anaerobic fungi that are critical for you know, we were talking about food on pizza, but think about no cows. No, you know, any young gullet wouldn't be able to survive. They couldn't function without the anaerobic fungi in their rumens.
Monni Böhm:So technically we would be nothing without fungi. True, excellent.
Justin Birkhoff:Podcast over. I think we've said it all.
Greg Mueller:It's the best takeover. Okay, excellent podcast over record time. Yeah, it's kind of, I like to say, life on this planet would not exist as we know it without fungi that's yeah, I mean, that's a very accurate statement.
Justin Birkhoff:So you alluded to some of this research, and so, uh, mycology is the, the study of. Ooh, justin knows a big word? Yes, I do, it's also written down, it's really easy. So what kind of other things do mycologists do besides strict kind of bench-based research? Oh, boy so yeah, so bench-based research but all over the place from.
Greg Mueller:You know diversity studies, ecological studies. You know one of the things that fungi are so hot on now is for alternative. You know building materials. My brother just sent me an article from I think it was the New York Times or someplace talking about you know they're using fungal mycelium and impregnated and other things to make building bricks. There's a big push now to make synthetic leather fungal leather for a clothing option and there is bioremediation of work being done, looking at how fungi could be used to clean up oil spills or other type of disasters. I had a student email me two days ago three days ago, something like that about what role fungi could play in decontaminating the soils from the Ohio train wreck. Oh, okay, I sent them off to somebody else because that's not my area of research, to know exactly what would be done. But that's another place that fungi are being looked at.
Greg Mueller:Besides the typical things of ecology, whatever medical mycology and conservation issues.
Monni Böhm:Speaking of which I mean, it does sound like fungi generally are like the pardon, the animal expression the workhorses of our planet and that we rely on them. But I assume they also face a lot of challenges, and you hinted at conservation. So what are some of the challenges that these fungi face?
Greg Mueller:They face the same challenges that plants and animals face. Right, they are facing challenges of loss of habitat, degradation of habitat, of air pollution, of climate change, of over-harvesting in a few cases. So you know all the things that you think of that causes species problems. Whether it's a plant or an animal, the fungi face the same issue.
Greg Mueller:What's interesting about fungi that we think of more than plant folks usually think about is that it's a relationship, right, there's these symbiotic associations. So for things like climate change, if you have a close relationship between a particular fungus and a species of plant and the plant responds to climate change differentially than the fungus, you could have a disconnect, kind of an asymmetry in responses to climate change. So you can have direct effects, but you can have these indirect effects as well. And fungi you know mycologists think of that Plant folks usually don't think about that. They should be, because if their plants are moving at a different rate than the fungi that are necessary, that's another issue. But they've got their head up in the air instead of in the ground and so they don't think of it.
Justin Birkhoff:It's a very practical, logical way to put that. It's also a nice identification device If you see somebody with a head in the ground clearly a fungi person device.
Monni Böhm:if you see somebody with a head in the ground, clearly a funky person.
Justin Birkhoff:So I think with with I mean that that spurs an interesting question, because one of the things we we talk about, or has you know makes the rounds in kind of common media, is about, you know, reforestation is a big thing. Is, you know, we for carbon offsets? For you know, making sure that we hit our you know these kind hit these global climate change goals is replanting trees and so one is losing old growth trees has a larger impact than planting a new tree is going to be able to make up for. But also you talked about this relationship is, without being aware and cognizant of that relationship, these planting, you know, ventures may be wholly somewhat unsuccessful. Is that something that you?
Greg Mueller:it's not well advertised. Okay, because people don't want to. You know the funders don't want to admit it, but many of these big, massive tree planting across the globe aren't working right. After a couple of years the trees don't survive, and it's because not using the right tree in the right environment that these tree plantings are taking place. To have to recognize that the, the fungi and other microbes that are in the soil not just fungi, though that's what I care about, but there are important bacteria, soil microarthropods, everything that's there that makes up this living soil community that's essential for the plants to these trees to thrive and survive.
Greg Mueller:And without thinking of it holistically, we're just putting a bunch of sticks in the ground and watching them die. That's a little bold, but that's actually what's happening in some cases, and so hopefully we'll have a more holistic, thoughtful tree planting exercises than some of the things that are going on now. It takes more time, it takes more thought than we say. We're going to plant, you know, a million trees this year, which some places are doing that, but the question is, what's there in five years? How many of that million is still there?
Justin Birkhoff:And it also kind of alludes to the idea that you know, conservation historically has been very species-focused and it's really easy to you know say we're going to save.
Justin Birkhoff:You know California redwoods and California natives, as you know a plant that's important to me but not really take into account like what that entire habitat looks like. You know a plant that's important to me but not really take into account like what that entire habitat looks like. You know a subterranean as well as you know what we're, what we're able to see really easily. And it also beckons the idea that when we talk about conservation that we need to make the team bigger and start looking at some of these disciplines that are have often been applied to something you know agriculturally based in the United States and other parts of the world, but how those skill sets can be really included into things like you know just kind of general soil health and how that affects forest health and conservation. And then you know the smaller species or the smaller kind of pieces of that, when you start to look at the species that make up this larger habitat as a whole.
Monni Böhm:You look like you're going to say something was just going to say conservation.
Justin Birkhoff:It's not easy, is it?
Monni Böhm:no, yeah, no, as soon as we started to think about fungi, it's like oh, it's complicated well, I guess I'm a little biased, but I think of conservation, I think of ecology.
Greg Mueller:You know, everybody says it's not rocket science, I say it's not ecology. I mean, you know, here we're talking about, you know, multiple organisms across multiple kingdoms and environmental factors and soil factors, and we're trying to figure out how all that works together. I think that ecology has to be the most complicated field because there are so many different things and so much stochastic. You know, chance, that's going into it as well.
Justin Birkhoff:So yeah, you're right. You know. Think about when we put a man on the moon versus the amount of information we're continuing to learn about. You know soil science and you know you mentioned the giant breadth of what is fungi and how many of those species are described, and then how little we know about the ones that are. And yeah, rocket science sounds really good, but we figured a lot of that out already.
Monni Böhm:I think it's just because lots of people didn't like physics. That's why they picked that as an expression. But yeah, I do agree. I do agree.
Justin Birkhoff:Ecology, I think, is just because lots of people didn't like physics.
Monni Böhm:That's why they picked that as an expression. But yeah, I do agree. I do agree. Ecology, I think, is much more complicated, and we should have an extra podcast episode just to discuss that, I think, because that's going to be awesome.
Justin Birkhoff:What's more?
Monni Böhm:complicated than ecology, and nobody will come up with something that will be so cool.
Greg Mueller:The math is maybe a little simpler. That's why I could never be a physicist. I can't do that math, but that's okay yeah cool, awesome, um.
Monni Böhm:So all living things um communicate to some extent. I mean, we are right now um generally by sending and receiving signals, and you just hinted at that previously as well, but didn't go into too much detail. But how do fungi communicate? Because I mean, you know they're not on podcasts as guests. Not yet, not yet, not yet.
Greg Mueller:So there's a lot of press right now and effort to understand, especially the communication between the fungi as mediators of communication within forest and grasslands, so between species of trees and other plants and among fungi, and there's a lot we still don't know. There is a lot of romanticism that's being out there and potentially, I would say, misinformation, but extrapolating beyond what we know to be fact, so whether it is kind of an almost avatar idea or Gaia, where the whole, you know forest is one interacting living organism, is probably pushing it too far. Let me back up though, so right when we talk about mycorrhizas, just so that our listeners understand what's going on with that. So these fungi and plants are intimately associated. They vary on how much specificity they have. There are some fungi that are specific to certain plants. Some trees have a smaller suite of species they associated with, others are very generalists, right.
Greg Mueller:So we got to mix Fungi, the mycelium, so the underground part of the fungus actually comes into contact with the roots and the fungi are really efficient at bringing in and absorbing water nutrients like phosphorus nitrogen, and absorbing water nutrients like phosphorus nitrogen, micronutrients. But fungi don't make their own food. The plants photosynthesize. So in exchange, or you could say in stealing, the fungus steals some of this excess carbon that the plants are making and the tree is taking up excess nutrients and water that the fungus is bringing in, and that's what mycorrhizae is. So you could say it's a mutualism. You could also say it's controlled mutual parasitism, if you want right Because they're both taking from the other, but it's mutually beneficial.
Greg Mueller:Okay, so we've known that for a long time, since the late 1800s. What happened in the 1990s was some laboratory work and some field work that showed that some nutrients from our carbon foam tree A actually can be moved into tree B, into the adjacent tree, and the idea is that it's being moved through this common mycelial network, through these fungal connections, and we have a pretty good idea that that happens, at least on a small scale. The question is, how big of a scale is it? Does it move between this tree to this tree, to this tree, to this tree to this tree, or is it really kind of locally important? And that's what we don't know yet.
Greg Mueller:There's been some studies that have shown that a particular individual fungus can connect to multiple trees. We know that's possible, but remember, this is thin mycelium going through the soil. Are those mycelia intact? All we can do is say they're genetically isolated. So back up, if you think of a strawberry plant, right, strawberries have runners, right? Yeah, so each of these strawberries are genetically isolated, genetically identical, okay, but if those runners are split, those individual plants still grow yeah they still are.
Greg Mueller:if you take their d, they're still genetically identical, they're just not connected anymore. And so we don't know now, because how do you check this if these genetically identical fungi on this tree and this tree and this tree, is the connection still intact? Yeah, allowing for this transfer. And that's what we don't know at the moment. And it's going to be hard to tell because, of course, anything you do to test that breaks it. So that's where we are.
Greg Mueller:So I guess I would say at the current level of knowledge is we know that mycorrhizae are critically important. I think there's pretty good data that there is at least some short-term communication, both of nutrients, even potentially stress signals and other things, between adjacent plants. Probably you know the best-selling book that just came out, the Mother Tree by Susan Schmard. Probably bigger trees do have more connections than smaller trees, right? Whether this is the other thing that we don't know is you know people have been trying to when they romanticize it or anthropomorphize it. It's a thoughtful process versus it's a thoughtful process versus.
Greg Mueller:You know, in nature diffusion is standard, right? By diffusion we mean that if you've got high concentration of something and you're connected to something with low concentration, there is movement from high concentration to low concentration. Think of your water system. You've got water tanks right, big water towers and there's lots of water there and it runs down and it feeds your pipes. There's no thought process in there. There's no greater whatever. It's just you know it's basically back to our physics. It's physics and so whatever's moving here is probably just diffusion. It's probably not a thoughtful process.
Monni Böhm:See, we definitely won the thing against.
Justin Birkhoff:I don't want to discount the importance of fungi, but it's probably not to the degree that we're getting in some of the science fiction that's happening now when people passing it off as real yeah, making assertions or kind of optimistic interpretations of relatively I don't want to say rudimentary, but really early findings in this space.
Monni Böhm:I just really like that. We also now claim physics as definitely a part of ecology. So there you go. In your face. Physicist, physicist is that even the right word? It is.
Monni Böhm:I also learned that I understand principles much easier if they explain to me through the medium of strawberry plants. So that was really awesome. That's really good. That's very helpful. This podcast is a production of the Global Center for Species Survival at the Indianapolis Zoo. We record all episodes in the Beadle Financial Media Studio, made possible by a generous gift from Eric and Elaine Beadle.
Justin Birkhoff:So I think one kind of question, as you mentioned, is studying this is inherently difficult because any sort of disturbance really destroys what you're trying to study. You know, are there ways that you're aware of that we could start to look at studying and measuring this level of communication between fungi and between fungi and host plants?
Greg Mueller:Yeah, there's a lot of effort ongoing. I had a student that was trying to look at this, but she kept killing her plants and her G-trees. It didn't work, but it was actually going to set up a daisy chain to see how far, you know, this communication might go, and so I think that people will be doing more lab work. It's always hard to extrapolate from lab because it's a simplified system, but you can manipulate things in the lab that you can't in the field.
Greg Mueller:So I think that's one thing that's going to happen, I think, as we get more and more sensors ways to, because one of the questions are is more and more sensors ways to? Because one of the questions is there probably are signals, and we know there's signals in whatever passed from plant to plant. How much of it is it going through the mycelium network? How much might be being leached out by the roots and actually traveling through the soil? How much might be root-to-root contact, you know? So let's say that fungi are involved. What percentage of the exchange is happening through the fungi versus these other mechanisms?
Justin Birkhoff:Are they different? Communication providers are available yeah I mean, is it's kind of the idea that they're they're contributing to this communication as opposed to facilitating all of it?
Greg Mueller:right, right, and so I think, as we get better sensors and kind of figure out some way to track nutrient flow through the, through the soil, and be able to you know, basically, you, you do some kind of thing up here's how much seems to be moving through the soil, and be able to you know, basically you do some kind of thing of here's how much seems to be moving through the soil. It could be this and here's this and here's the total amount. What's the percentage of each one of these? And I think we'll get there. It's just really time and it's challenging data, yeah, but that's okay, it's important stuff and people are working on it.
Justin Birkhoff:Maybe we'll recruit some of those rocket data. Yeah, but that's okay. It's important stuff and people are working on it.
Monni Böhm:Maybe we'll recruit some of those rocket scientists, absolutely, once they've done all they. I mean they've done it all, haven't they? Haven't they just done?
Justin Birkhoff:it all. We have a private space race. I think they've gotten there. We had a man on the moon.
Monni Böhm:Some things on Mars. There you go.
Greg Mueller:Let's done with it. Yeah, when we're, you know, when this podcast is banned on on physics today, we'll know we've, uh, and then we've achieved, I feel, ultimately then I'll make myself a badge and wear it with pride.
Monni Böhm:It'll be the best thing ever. Oh, the physicists, they've done it already. It's like come on, what do you want to find out?
Justin Birkhoff:um, so we we've touched on this a lot that the fungi have, you know, this wide breadth of species. They're found in lots of different places. They have lots of different roles In conservation. We often talk about plant blindness, where there's a lot of focus on animal species and the fact that fungi are not as visual for a lot of these species, a lot of the families of fungi that that is, even to a greater extent. So what are the sorts of things that we need to take into consideration as conservationists and just, you know, as good stewards of our wild places? You know what are the things that we can do better to kind of reduce some of that fungi blindness but also make sure that we support some of these species that are in peril or have the potential to become in peril.
Greg Mueller:Yeah, what's what I'm trying to think of? Appropriately taking advantage of all of this press that fungi are getting right now to keep interest and recognition of the importance of fungi without you know.
Justin Birkhoff:Sensationalizing it, too much Sensationalizing it yes.
Greg Mueller:So I think we're at this incredible point right now where people are talking about fungi. You know they're on TV shows. There was a whole article in Vogue magazine last year on clothes that are, you know, fashion that's being influenced by fungi patterns and stuff like that. So there's so much going on right now. How do we keep that conversation going and then try to dig deeper in what that means? So I think raising recognition is important, and it's not just in the general public.
Greg Mueller:It's fairly recent that organizations like the International Union for the Conservation of Nature actually recognize the need to have separate of that. Organizations like the International Union for the Conservation of Nature actually recognized the need to have separate specialist groups focused on fungi. We're still working on getting a specialist group for aquatic fungi. So we're still at the point at one major conservation organizations that are now starting to recognize the need but haven't necessarily engaged that. In the US you know NatureServe. So I'm in a lot of conversation with NatureServe now and with different state natural heritage programs to see how we could get them thinking about fungi and engaging fungi in that work. Currently, for example, in the Endangered Species Act I think there's two or three lichens that's it that are on that.
Greg Mueller:So I think we have a lot of work to do within the conservation community, not just within the public, okay, and one of the things that's great is there is this incredibly burgeoning may I say, mushrooming interest in, uh by um, citizen scientists.
Greg Mueller:Okay, so there are some great programs.
Greg Mueller:So I'm on the board of this organization called the Fungal Diversity Survey, fundis, which is really trying to engage people and provide citizen scientists, community scientists, with the tools that they need to really make meaningful discovery and document fungal diversity, fungal distributions. There's the North American Mycological Association, which is the amateur club, is really starting to get more and more engaged with conservation issues, and there are a number of sites. There's a person in I think it's Oregon or Washington State, I forget which, sorry who has set up a iNaturalist site for people to post images of red-listed species so we can actually start documenting, you know, further documenting their distribution, their abundance and, if the metadata there, the data that is associated with their you know what their habitat is, what their threats might be. So it's actually engaging these folks. Because this, though, we have an incredible number of fungi out there. We have a very small and not increasing number of mycologists. So we've got to engage the community scientists to help us with this work, and they're starting to do that is one of the limiting factors.
Justin Birkhoff:Capacity is just. There's not enough people in the space at this point. Yeah, I mean, is there a way to encourage that sort of recruitment into conservation with fungi, or is that the silver bullet that hasn't been figured out yet?
Greg Mueller:It's something we're working on. It's again where this increased recognition of how cool fungi are and how important fungi are. We need to build on that and then what we need to do is, you know, fungi are the only ones that are struggling at least US and, I think, european universities of keeping positions and adding that especially mycologists that are actually looking at organisms and not just doing molecular technology. But hopefully we can keep a pipeline going to create the next generation of mycologists and keep that going and people doing creative interesting things.
Justin Birkhoff:Yeah, I think having that, like you mentioned, this kind of boom in public media and public spaces with, you know, fungi taking front and center and a couple of these things may inspire some somebody who didn't know that they you know that this was what their calling was going to be. Like you're cutting money off, so what's your?
Monni Böhm:No, that's quite all right. I've since forgotten, forgotten about two questions, but there's a new one just just popped into my head. Um, if any budding fans or already fans of fungi fangy, maybe we could abbreviate it to that are listening to this podcast and they really want to get out there and explore a little bit what's around, how would you go about it? What would they do? What are the tools that are there for them to kind of engage further with this, with this wonderful world?
Greg Mueller:I would look into, um, you know some of the existing organizations, so fundus, which is just actually fundusorg, um, you know, to contact, contact that group and then NAMA, the North American Mycological Association, is the other group, and then you'd find like-minded people. You'd find a bunch of resources there that talks about. You know, one of the things we're trying to do is, you know so, inaturalist is this amazing tool. You know there's millions of, there's hundreds of thousands of people posting images of fungi up there.
Greg Mueller:Many of them are not that useful, you know. So one of the things that with Fundus is doing is has actually instructions of how to take better photographs. What are the data that we need? You can't just take from the top. We need to see more of the organism. What are the data that you know? Could you please supply with that? You know what kind of forest were you in, or grassland, you know. So things like that. So I think, contacting those groups even if you decide not to join those groups, there are resources that are there that will tell you how to take more meaningful observations, you know, to give you ideas of what you can be doing. So I think that's the place to start.
Monni Böhm:Okay, so utilize your proverbial mycorrhizal and reach out to other players in the field I don't know. Very ridiculous link there made to all of the fungi.
Monni Böhm:No, it's to mycelium fungi folks and, uh, we need to keep building and and creating that mycelium I'm still not getting all the lingo right, greg, but you just keep me on track and eventually I will be able to do it. Um, it's all good. One of my follow up questions actually was, like you mentioned that of course at the moment is what fungi are? Super popular Lots of media lately, tv shows and so on, documentaries what's it like to suddenly see your species group get so much more attention and fame? Essentially be friends, celebrities, um, when previously they were just all overlooked. And how's it been received in the mycological community limelight?
Greg Mueller:yeah, no, it's, it's great. Um, again, trying to figure out how to do that without substantializing it is is that is the challenge. But it great. It does fill up my email box. I mean I've got, I think, four messages right now I've got to get back to with students. One wants to do a video and one has got a question about this and another is asking about cleaning up Ohio. So I mean it's like that's great. I mean, who wants radio silence? But it does add to the, it adds to the fun. Yeah, so it's great. I think it's terrific. My mother you know, after whatever, how many years never understood what I was doing. You know, I had to explain to her a million times and she'd finally say I was at my bridge club. And you know, I just couldn't explain why you do what you do. I think if she was alive now she could probably do that better, because you would have had much more context to do that. So, yeah, so I'm happy that's fantastic.
Monni Böhm:Did you open a bottle of champagne? You toast all the fungi out there. So you're now agent to the rock stars.
Justin Birkhoff:Really, that's ultimately what you are, so pretty, you're glossy, so you can start getting your signature ready yeah, a lot of merchandise I think as well, to be quite honest, that could raise funds for conservation.
Monni Böhm:We'll talk about this later um.
Justin Birkhoff:so, as we talked about this kind of heightened awareness and the zeitgeist in the public media, are we seeing something similar in conservation? You know we just had a CITES meeting at the end of last year, so the Convention for International Trade of Endangered Species. Are we seeing Of plants?
Greg Mueller:and animals Of plants and animals.
Justin Birkhoff:Sorry, animals, sorry. I knew I was gonna you notice there's something missing.
Greg Mueller:Yeah, there was something missing there we're talking about yeah, the fungi blindness?
Justin Birkhoff:um are our fungi starting to be included in these, in these international trade treaties um to to a greater extent, as we realize that there are more species that are threatened by trade um than there have been historically?
Greg Mueller:So that's something we're working on. Okay, we are actually in. Next, what is it? It's still February, right? Yes? So next month yes, tomorrow we have the first meeting of FUSE, the fungal use group that we're developing to look at these kind of issues. There are a couple of NGOs, one of them being this organization called Fair Wild, which certifies a sustainably harvest plant material. They're getting into the fungal business. So I'm in conversation with them and we're going to be doing a pilot project.
Greg Mueller:I think in Malawi is where the pilot project is going to be, to see, you know, what do we mean by sustainable harvest of fungi? How do we track that? What are the ways that, if we're going to, we can document that these are being sustainably harvested? So that work's going on. We've had conversations on how we could get some fungi recognized in, say, cites, and we're still working on that. We want to make sure we've got our case. Well, I will say it is possible right now to list a fungus under CITES, but it would be listed as a plant. So we've got to change the whole documentation of CITES to recognize fungi as a separate kingdom. So that's not going to be easy. This is a multilateral agreement across many, many, many, many, many countries, and so we've got to have our argument really well crafted. So we're working on that.
Justin Birkhoff:So I mean, obviously, having fungi and Cites be recognized for what it is is very important, but would it make sense to nest things listed under as a plant even though it is not in the short term, and then change that definition later? Or does that add more complicated variables that nobody wants to deal with?
Greg Mueller:more complicated variables that nobody wants to deal with. I think it's setting bad precedence because then it's going to. We can just keep on the status quo column plans and do this and you got what you want, yeah.
Greg Mueller:So, I think that really we need to recognize, because not only is it important to recognize that fungi are discrete, but we can't just use the terminology, we can't just use the assessment tools, we can't just use the protocols that work for plants right. So by having fungi recognized as discrete entities, we can also develop the tools that we need to sustain these organisms.
Justin Birkhoff:So I think that's another reason, because otherwise they kind of just said well, they're there we'll just use existing things and they don't always work.
Monni Böhm:That makes total sense. One last question from me. I've got here in the notes what can the public do? But based on what we just talked about, I think a lot of it is actually to do. Well, when we think about fungi blindness, it's also about excluding fungi from our language very often, and so maybe we should finish off this podcast by giving a few examples of how we best refer to them. Ie, when we talk about fauna and flora, don't forget the fungal. Or talk about plants no fungi, no animals. Fungi and plants no. Were they meant to be alphabetical? I don't know. I'm very confused. In short, can you tell us about the three F's, greg? I should have just asked that straight away Instead of confusing myself unnecessarily.
Greg Mueller:We got there, we got there you were going great and then you kind of yeah, but I lost it.
Greg Mueller:That's quite often what happens to me at round about this time in the afternoon yeah, yeah, but no, this is this um effort that is being picked up, uh, needs to be picked up by more organizations and more, you know, recognized, more of an explicit recognition of fungi. So, yeah, we have had flora and fauna forever, so we've kind of decided on the word funga as the um, with concerts of the three f's flora, fauna and fungi. And then when one talks about animals and plants, they should talk about animals, fungi and plants, and if it's alphabetical that's great. I'm not hung up on the alphabeticalness, but some of it are.
Monni Böhm:I really got it. It's clearly because I'm German. I'm very organized. It's got to be in order.
Greg Mueller:Well, the concern is, if it's always last, then it gets locked off yeah, yeah, no, that's, yeah, no, that's so if I but I put it in there. So it's animals, fungi and plants. Since the plants aren't going to be locked off, fungi are going to be mentioned you know, and so that's kind of the more intentional reason that, um, it makes sense to to try to you know emphasize that. Have you guys been bold enough to talk to you know emphasize?
Justin Birkhoff:that. Have you guys been bold enough to talk to Flora and Fauna International? Be like you guys need to add the third F, or is that too bold?
Greg Mueller:But we need to get there. I don't think we've succeeded yet, but yeah, I'll sign that petition.
Justin Birkhoff:when it goes around you let me know.
Greg Mueller:Okay, terrific.
Justin Birkhoff:We'll pass it goes around you.
Greg Mueller:Let me know, okay, terrific, we'll. We'll pass it on to you quick yeah awesome.
Justin Birkhoff:So I think I mean I have one last question for you, and this is somewhat absurd. Um, when we talk, about like yeah it's very much not like me. When we talk about fungi, we talk about you know where they sit and kind of our, our general thought process with. Generally, you think of mushrooms and when you think of mushrooms, the kind of international symbol for mushrooms is this red capped toadstool. Do you know why, or do you want to conjecture as to why? Um alice in wonderland?
Justin Birkhoff:I don't know um, I mean, it's just, that seems as reasonable as any explanation.
Greg Mueller:It's gorgeous, you know. It's been kind of in the mythology of fungi for a long period of time. It is actually something that has some. You know it's been used by some cultures for it's not hallucinogenic, it's more intoxicant, but it has been used religiously in the past. So it has a long history of engagement with people. Do I think it's the best fungus to use? No, but people like it, you know. I mean it's great. Somebody told me I think I took a picture I was in Abu Dhabi or someplace which is not exactly a mushroom paradise, and there's, you know, the kids, swing sets and playground. You know they've got red cap mushrooms, as you know, decorating the place. It is fungus. And so I think we have bigger battles to fight than the change to change that. Maybe what we can do is augment it so that it's not just that.
Monni Böhm:But if you could change it, which fungus would you use, and why?
Justin Birkhoff:It's a hard question.
Monni Böhm:Sorry, I just went with Justin's absurdity. And what you use and why it's a hard question. Sorry, I just went with Justin's absurdity and just dove right in.
Justin Birkhoff:It was a sir, but we got a great answer, I know.
Greg Mueller:I don't think one size fits all. I think it depends on what we're talking about. I'm going to cop out and not come up with a favorite fungus.
Monni Böhm:No aquatic fungi. As like I don't know, the emblem on a swing set on a playground no.
Justin Birkhoff:On a sweatshirt. Sweatshirt.
Greg Mueller:Well, it'd be cool. I mean the spores. You know we've been joking about aquatic fungi, but most of them aren't highly visible to the naked eye, but under a microscope they have some of the coolest spores of any organisms on the planet. They've got all these adaptations to be able to float on the water and everything else. They're brilliant. So, yeah, I'd love to see a collage of fungal spores and include a lot of aquatic fungi in that.
Justin Birkhoff:Very cool. So I think one thing we like to kind of do when we finish these conversations is kind of one thing we both learned and I'm going to go first because I'm going to steal Monty's the eDNA to find deep sea fungi was probably the coolest part of this conversation. I had no idea it existed. And just to learn what eDNA is doing, you know, as as the mammal coordinator here we you know it's very easy and applied in terrestrial systems and what we've learned through it is absolutely fascinating. But to see how it's changing the landscape of ecology across, you know, plants, animal and fungi is absolutely incredible.
Monni Böhm:So what have I learned? I've learned that if you ever truly want to blow your mind it's probably going in the same direction as Justin's is truly want to blow your mind, apart from maybe using hallucinogenic, hallucinogenic, hallucinogenic don't even, can't even say the word, probably proving my point Hallucinogenic.
Justin Birkhoff:Just go for it.
Monni Böhm:Just whatever he said Psychedelic, psychedelic, thanks. Excellent. Apart from using psychedelic mushrooms, talk to a mycologist about all the amazing stuff that's going on in the fungal kingdom, because it really is mind-blowing.
Justin Birkhoff:And then one last question for you, greg. Is there anything-? I've learned one more thing, oh, I've learned one more thing. Oh, you've learned one more thing I have.
Monni Böhm:Well, I've learned many more things. Sorry, I don't want to disappoint Greg by only having learned one more thing Flora, fauna, funga, animal fungi, plants Very good.
Justin Birkhoff:There you go. So, greg, is there anything that you hoped we would have asked you today, or something that you would like to share with us and with our listeners about, uh, about funga um no, I think we've had a pretty wide ranging conversation.
Greg Mueller:I can't think of anything that without going down a big, big rabbit hole, but I think it's kind of too tangential. We're good.
Monni Böhm:I learned one more thing. If you see somebody with a head in the soil, it's a mycologist. If they're looking up, was it plants? I mean it's also potentially an ornithologist yes, yeah, there you go.
Justin Birkhoff:But, greg, we really want to say thank you. We do appreciate you joining us and answering the very serious questions and the somewhat absurd questions. And it was, it was wonderful. We learned a lot.
Monni Böhm:Yeah, and I think you really can call yourself now Funcle Highness.
Greg Mueller:Well, it was a real pleasure for me. As you can tell, I don't mind talking about my job. I kind of, I kind of like that. So yeah. Thanks for giving me the opportunity.
Justin Birkhoff:This is great. Thanks, Greg. We hope you enjoy the rest of your day.
Greg Mueller:Okay, bye, now Bye.
