Britain is running out of mycologists - experts in fungi. There were 32 in the 1990s, but just eight now.

Scientists say we should be worried as, without a British research base, other countries could stand to make lucrative fungi-based discoveries in everything from medicine to engineering.

If you should find yourself walking in woodland in the next couple of weeks, you may well discover why experts are saying it's been an exceptional year for British fungi.

Mushrooms and toadstools love cool, wet summers, and the rare and the beautiful have been popping up all over the country this autumn as a result - golden bootleg in Aberdeenshire, truffles in Nottinghamshire and waxcaps in Wales.

Some have never been seen in this country before, and that is proof, say the conservationists, of how little we know about our nation's fungi.

Fungi's role

Paul Cannon knows more than most, he's a British mycologist, rarer now than many of the species he studies.

But as we walk through the woods of Surrey hunting for fungi on a clear day, it's clear his enthusiasm for the subject has not dimmed.

"We tend to think of mushrooms on toast or yeast in bread or beer, but they do so much more for us than that," he says.

"Fungi make plant roots work. If it wasn't for fungi, plants would not be able to extract nutrients from the soil. So no fungi, no plants. And no plants, no us."

Some mycologists believe studying fungi is just not glamorous enough for today's biology students, who want to pursue disciplines with words like "nuclear" and "molecular", in laboratories with expensive computers, rather than going to fields and woods collecting samples which you then study through a microscope.

But according to Dr Trevor Nicholls, chief executive of the CABI research institute in Oxfordshire, our national mycological research base could collapse in the very near future.

"There is a danger that it could dry up altogether, it really is a worry," he says.

"We have, for example, no expertise in this country in some of the diseases of wheat and rice, that are caused by fungi, that could have a major impact on food security."

Action needed

Aircraft maintenance does not seem an obvious area where applications for mycology can be found.

But Joan Kelley, the executive director of bioservices at the CABI Institute, shows a sample of aircraft fuel, covered with a thick glutinous mat of mould that glories in the name Hormoconis resinae.

Not only can the mould break off and block up fuel pipes, it excretes a corrosive substance which can damage the tanks themselves.

She was the person who developed the test now used across the industry, to alert airlines to the mould's presence.

She has no doubt about the importance of the role the mycologists played.

She says: "Yes, we do molecular biology here, but you need the mycologists to tie everything together."

A few solutions to the mycologist droughts have been suggested - producing education material for schoolchildren, for example, or developing university courses in mycology.

But unless we act soon, scientists say, British mycologists will be a thing of the past.

Sarah Mukherjee 

BBC

Comments (4)

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written by Treemonk , December 02, 2008

Pretty much a common theme throughout a lot of disciplines. I heard that soil science is in decline, forestry is in the doldrums too. Look at university intakes and they are full of psychology undergrads! The government makes huge ammounts of noise about climate change and conservation and yet dodges paying the relatively small ammounts of money needed to keep the academic departments open.

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written by Ajali , December 09, 2008

The only place doing Mycology as an undergraduate degree in Britain is near Newcastle, I think.
This is weird, as for the past couple of years I've been thinking of jacking in the Philosophy and English Literature degree as 'not that important in the grand scheme of things' and doing Microbiology to use as a stepping stone for my obsession (yes, different to passion) with mushrooms.
Does anyone know of any way to contact these endangered mycologists?

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written by kedwould , December 18, 2008

I am going to do forest and woodland mangement at uni, but would happily spend my days looking at mushrooms. i reckon most people on bushcraft uk could do research, it is an interest many people do have, their should be more chances to study this, i am currently doing an ND in countryside mangement and we dont even do field studies, the government or education people need a kick up the arse........

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written by sandsnakes , January 02, 2009

As a thought what about doing a bushcraft based survey of fungi on the sites we all use? Pick a specific date and then do a photo trawel. The compiled info could be posted and passed on to the 'mushroom heads'

Field data is very hard to gather on mass, bushcrafters would then be seen as a source of both craft, cultural and scientific vale. The other thing is, when asked why you are in a field or forest you can truthfully say 'taking part in the annual mycology census officer, care for some fly agaric tea?'

Sandsnakes

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