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LONDON – Scientists at the famous Kew Royal Botanic Gardens are trying to correct an injustice: they do not believe that mushrooms get the respect they deserve.
This is one of the reasons for the publication of the State of the World's Mushrooms report on Wednesday, the world's first ever look at how mushrooms help provide food, medicine, plants, life-saving medicines . alarming pace.
The focus on mushrooms is designed to draw attention to the potentially vital new uses currently under study – including the possible deployment of a mushroom that "eats" plastic and degrades it quickly, and could clean the radioactive waste. threatening the habitat of fungi in various parts of the Earth.
Katherine Willis, director of science, says researchers know relatively little about mushrooms – many of which are hidden under the ground or invisible to the naked eye – live in food and drink for more than 9,000 people years.
"We have just begun to touch the surface of knowledge of this incredible and diverse group of organizations," she said.
"By looking for nature-based solutions to some of our most critical global challenges, mushrooms could provide many answers. We ignore it at our peril.
She argues that mushrooms have a profile Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Help 90% of the world's plants get nutrients, while irreversibly damaging some ecosystems. The ash dieback fungus, for example, has spread from Poland in most of Europe and now threatens not only ash but 955 other species.
The report says climate change is already impacting the reproduction, distribution and activity of mushrooms, but Willis warned that more research would be needed to determine with certainty how the world's fungi will be affected by global warming. of the planet.
The focus on mushrooms is new, but Kew's amazing mushroom collection dates back to the time of evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin and children's author Beatrix Potter.
She, too, was a devoted mushroom fan who came up against the best mycologist from Kew – as mushroom specialists. In a brief break with the British decorum of the time, she even suggested that he had himself become a mushroom.
Kew is known to take a comprehensive approach to field research, but it is impossible in this case. There are up to 3.8 million mushroom species, but only about 144,000 have been identified. New discoveries are made all the time, but no one expects every species to be cataloged anytime soon.
Nevertheless, Kew's fungarium, hidden out of public view, is home to about 1.25 million specimens, making it the largest collection of mushrooms in the world, said the chief mycologist, Ester Gaya. Some date back to the 18th century.
It also houses – under a key – a rare collection of mushrooms known colloquially as "magic mushrooms" for their psychedelic properties. Kew scientists say that more and more types of psychotropic fungi are being discovered in many parts of the world.
Mushrooms are praised for their medical uses, they have proven essential for antibiotics and cholesterol-lowering statins, but even mushroom fans admit that there is a macabre element in some aspects of mushroom life. There is the fungus, for example, that invades the cicada nymphs and settles inside the body of the cicada, killing them slowly.
Then there are the fungi that live in the ants, controlling their movements before killing them. Fungi can infect an entire colony of ants with their spores, said Gaya.
"They turn them into zombie ants," she said.
But not everything is bad. She notes that the compounds used by fungi to live successfully in some animals are valuable immunosuppressants that have been used to develop cyclosporine-based drugs that have been shown to be invaluable in preventing organ rejection after transplantation. l & # 39; man.
"It's really disgusting," Scientific Director Willis said of how fungi invade ants. But she admits that the associated medical discoveries have helped humanity. "They are really horrible and really good."
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