Toby Kiers, executive director of SPUN, refers to our carbon-capturing fungal ecosystems, as the Amazonian forest of the underground. SPUN (Society for the Protection of Underground Networks) is a science-based initiative dedicated to mapping and protecting Earth’s underground fungal networks. Why? Because more than a quarter of Earth’s species living in soils underground, including the fungal networks that help store huge quantities of carbon and provide most plants with the majority of the nutrients they need to survive and allow the plants to receive important signals from others.
All true MycoHeroes, this team of scientists launched a first-of-its-kind effort to map the world’s mycorrhizal fungi, a process they hope can identify fungal biodiversity for conservation, grow understanding of how these species interact within ecosystems and keep more carbon in soil.
Cherry on the cake - they're making all data publicly available and accessible to who can leverage it.
Check them out:
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