Travel to southwest London, and you’ll have the opportunity to visit Kew Gardens, a stunning botanical collection founded in 1840. The complex includes a lush treetop canopy, a vibrant greenhouse featuring plants from around the world, and what is perhaps the collection’s most unique feature: the Fungarium, boasting the largest collection of fungi anywhere in the world. A recent Wired feature explains the geological impact of this collection, which contains about 1.3 million specimens of spore-producing fungal fruiting bodies. Read on for more information on the article’s findings.
The Kew Fungarium: The Key to Preserving Plant Life as We Know It?
Not to be confused with a herbarium — a term for plant collections — the Kew Fungarium is, essentially, a library of fungi specimens. Wired quotes Lee Davies, the curator of the Kew Fungarium, who notes that the collection allows experts to “come up with a reference of fungal biodiversity — what fungi are out there in the world, where you can find them.” Not only is the Fungarium a popular attraction for visiting biology enthusiasts and tourists alike, but it also has stunning implications for the future of biological preservation and climate change reduction.
Ecological Implications of the Kew Fungarium
Wired reporter Matt Reynolds outlines the impact of a massive Fungarium like the one hosted at Kew. That impact includes the following:
- Carbon capture: Carbon capture technology has quickly become one of the most promising manmade interventions to slow the impact of climate change. However, biologists know that soil — and the many organisms within the soil, including fungi — serve as massive carbon reservoirs. Scientists now know that plant roots and fungal networks are key orchestrators in this process, helping carbon enter the soil more efficiently. What does this mean for climate research? Sites like the Kew Fungarium allow researchers to explore the role of fungi in absorbing and transferring carbon, serving as a springboard for climate innovation.
- Biodiversity: Researchers can use the Fungarium’s archives to compare fungi samples from around the world, evaluating the impacts of, for example, heavy pollution on these specimens.
- Funding future research: Fungi present some of the richest, most unusual organic specimens found throughout the world — and most types of fungi species have yet to be discovered. Per Wired, mycologists believe that “nearly 90 percent of the world’s fungi species are still to be discovered.” The archivists at Kew are currently digitizing their collection to establish a more cohesive database, helping researchers log new finds every day.
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The Kew Fungarium is a worthwhile tourist destination, but it’s also a priceless look into how fungi influence critical ecosystems around the world. As a research hub, the Fungarium is invaluable to climate researchers, biologists, and other innovators helping to shepherd our planet to a brighter future.
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