A Note About Names
1. Whether there is a soft or hard g in “fungi” depends on whom you ask or what dictionary you check. Current editions of the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary accept both, which is good enough for me, but the Cambridge Dictionary is hard-nosed about insisting on a hard g.
2. List of mushroom common names for the U.K.: Holden (2003); for North America, see the websites for the North American Mycological Association (namyco.org) and iNaturalist (inaturalist.org).
3. “Kingdom” is the term traditionally used for the largest groupings of life (animals, plants, fungi, etc.). It is difficult to compare across kingdoms, but for the purposes of comparison with the animal kingdom, chordates (animals with backbones) and arthropods (insects and other creatures with exoskeletons) are different phyla; within chordates, mammals and birds are different classes; and within mammals, primates and rodents are different orders. This relative or hierarchical classification does not correlate with genetic divergence. Fungi may encompass ten times more genetic diversity than animals.
4. For amusing Latin names, see the website Curiosities of Biological Nomenclature, curioustaxonomy.net/puns/puns.html.
Introduction
1. Amato (2001) and Holmes (2003) consider the physical and biological composition of dust, and our cultural and psychological attitudes towards it. Griffin et al. (20 01) gives an overview of the public and ecosystem health consequences of the transcontinental spread of dust.
2. Microbial diversity revealed by fluorescent staining: Suttle (2 013).
3. Rock tripe and the Franklin expeditions: Smith (1877).
4. Mukēs is the Greek word for “fungus,” so mycology is the study of fungi. The British alternative “fungology” and “fungologist” never caught on, thankfully. The classic form gives us more scope for puns, like “Mycology is better than yours.”
5. A beautiful photographic overview of macrofungi: Petersen (2 013).
6. Mushroom murder mysteries: Wasson (1972).
7. The concept of mycophobia (as fungiphobia) is attributed to Hay (1887). The word “mycophile” has been used as a noun for amateur mushroom lovers in France since at least the 1880s (oed online, 2021). The terms were set into opposition as cultural characters by Wasson & Wasson (1957), which subsequently stimulated abundant ethnographic research.
8. For a scolding of the scientific prejudice against anthropomorphism, see de Waal (2019).
9.The nuances behind calculating the number of fungal species are discussed by Blackwell (2011).
1 | Life in the Colonies
1. Origins of life: Beerling (2019), Margulis & Sagan (1986). History of life and plate tectonics: David Christian’s (2011) ted talk gives an engaging introduction to the history of the Earth, and Prosanta Chakrabarty’s (2018) ted talk does the same for the history of life.
2. Last common ancestors: Among traditionally recognized kingdoms, fungi are much closer relatives to animals than plants. The number and composition of kingdoms, until recently considered the broadest category of classification of life, is revised frequently as more genome data for rare microbial groups becomes available. A few single-celled groups, previously considered protists, are intermediate between animals and fungi—for example, the choanoflagellates, a small group of about 125 microscopic species that live in water. See Burki (2014), Keeling & Burki (2019).
3. Fungal taxonomy: The details of morphology and life cycles for the major fungal groups are well known and verifiable from almost any general mycology textbook written for undergraduate university students. The books I consulted most often during my career were Alexopoulos et al. (1996), Burnett (1976), Kendrick (2017), and Webster & Weber (2007). For a beautifully illustrated and non-academic overview of fungal morphology, it is impossible to beat the book by the creative Danish photographer and mushroom enthusiast Jens Petersen (2013). Keep in mind that while older textbooks have their charm, those published in the previous century will miss out on the revolution initiated by DNA-based classification.
4. Mushroom identification: There are many excellent mushroom manuals. Any book you choose must have a good introduction to the methods used to accurately identify mushrooms. Look for a book published specifically for your country or region with color photographs and including at least 150 species. If you can find a local or national mushroom club, the members will recommend their favorites. For North American clubs, check the listings on the North American Mycological Association website (namyco.org/clubs.php). For Europe, check the European Mycological Association website (euromould.org/resources/links/socs.html).
5. Mushroom toxicity: Most mushroom manuals include detailed information on poisonous mushrooms. Mycological and medical aspects: Lincoff & Mitchel (1977). Chemistry of toxins: Yin et al. (2019).
6. Next-gen is now being replaced with new techniques called third-generation DNA sequencing, and next-gen is then sometimes referred to as second-generation.
7. If Google Earth didn’t stop: Google “Powers of Ten” for the famous 1977 video by Charles and Ray Eames, inspired by Boeke (1957), which zooms back and forth from the subatomic scale to the entire known universe. The animation by Lariontsev about Aspergillus diverts such a zoom into a fungal version of reality (youtu.be/8xrB9boqDjg).
8. Life as a fungus: There is a long tradition of imagining life through the eyes of other animals—for example, Nagel’s (1974) essay about what it is like to be a bat. Hoyt (1996) attempts such imaginings for ants, Sibley (2020) for birds, and Powers (2018), in his novel The Overstory, for trees. The fungal point of view is imagined in Piers Anthony’s (1968) science fiction novel Omnivore and Brie Larson’s narration of Louie Schwartzberg’s (2019) film Fantastic Fungi.
9. Hyphae in soil: Ekblad et al. (2013).
10. Clones and self-recognition: Hall et al. (2010).
11. Spores: Mycologists are obsessive about spores, and most books about fungi will have hundreds of spore illustrations. Mycological texts tend to be crammed full of drawings and photographs of spores—one of my chemistry profs called it “spore-nography.”
12. Speed of growth: Neurospora crassa grows 3 or 4 inches per day under ideal conditions (Ryan et al. 1943). Other fungi grow at much slower rates (Moore et al. 2020).
13. Dynamics of mycelial growth: Hale & Eaton (1985), Rayner (1997).
14. Genetics of fungal mating: Fraser & Heitman (2 003).
15. The 23,000 genders (of Schizophyllum commune): Rokas (2018).
16.Fungal chemistry, pheromones, and other metabolites: Bills & Gloer (2016).
2 | Life on the Commons
1. Overview of symbiosis: Margulis (1998). Anton de Bary: See Ward’s (1888) biography.
2. Darwin’s blind spot: Hammerstein (2003), Ryan (2002).
3. Lichens in Sudbury: Beckett (1995). Lichens as pollution monitors: Hawksworth&Rose (1976).
4. There are several books for general readers about lichen biology. I used Richardson (1975) as a starting point. Although not as well served as the mushroom community, lichenologists enjoy some awe-inspiring identification manuals based on visual characteristics, my favorite being Brodo et al. (2001). The website associated with that book includes a comprehensive compilation of the folk use of lichens through the millennia (sharnoffphotos.com/lichen_info/usetype.html). A recent view of lichen diversity and evolution is provided by Nelsen et al. (2020).
5. Lichenometry and the age of Arctic lichens: Armstrong (2015). An age of 8,600 years is often quoted online, although I could not find published data to support this.
6. Weathering of rocks: Chen et al. (2000).
7. Lichen dyes: Casselman (2001).
8. Lichen secondary metabolites: Shrestha & St. Clair (2013).
9. Leaf-cutting ants: Hoyt (1996) deals with these ants often from an anthropomorphic point of view; Hölldobler & Wilson (2010) is an academic but very approachable text.
10. The fungus cultivated by leaf-cutter ants is a close relative of the flowerpot parasol, Leucocoprinus birnbaumii, a slender, scaly-capped yellow mushroom that sometimes pops out beside house plants in human nesting chambers. Perhaps it is waiting for us to domesticate it and offer it a better life.
11. Search YouTube for the video “The Ant City” to see the outcome of the filling of a leaf-cutter colony with concrete in Brazil (Patrick 2013).
12. Genomes and the ant-fungus symbiosis: Nygaard et al. (2016).
13. Trichomycetes: Lichtwardt(2012).
14. Pasteur and Nosema: Borst (2011).
15. American origin of grape powdery mildew: Brewer & Milgroom (2010). Bordeaux mixture: Large (1940).
16. Corn smut as a plant pathogen: Pataky & Snetselaar (2006). Huitlacoche: Lipka (2009).
17. Invasive species: Kolbert (2014) is a stirring call to arms. For a broader look, see Anthony (2 017).
18. The Irish potato famine: Some of the material in this section appeared, in a different form, in Seifert (2013). See also Large (1940).
19. Biocontrol of weeds in Australia: Palmer et al. (2010).
20.Mitochondria and chloroplasts as symbionts: Margulis (1998), Martin & Mentel (2010).
3 | Forests
1. Endophytes: Pirttila & Frank (2011).
2. Lophodermium as an endophyte: Tanney et al. (2018).
3. History of ectomycorrhizae: Trappe (2005).
4. Plants lacking mycorrhizae: Brundrett & Tedersoo (2018).
5. Review of ectomycorrhizal biology: Smith & Reid (2008).
6. Influence of mycorrhizae on plant diversity: Brundrett & Tedersoo (2018).
7. “Wood Wide Web” was first coined by British ecologist David Moore in an editorial accompanying the article by Simard et al. (19 97) that demonstrated communication among trees in a natural forest. See also Simard (2021), Wohlleben (2016), various chapters in Sheldrake (2020).
8. Swedish work on tracing nutrient flow between tree roots and fungal hyphae: Lindeberg (1989).
9. Mother trees and mycorrhizae: Simard (2018, 2021).
10. The combined matsutake and chanterelle harvest sometimes exceeds the commercial value of timber from the same forests (Alexander et al. 2002).
11. Economic and cultural aspects of harvesting pine mushrooms: Tsing (2015). The fragrance “recalls times past”: Tsing (2015, 48).
12. Truffles: One hundred metabolites: Mustafa et al. (2020); prices, McCutchen (2017); international marketing and fraud in the truffle trade, Jacobs (2019).
13. Humongous fungus: Anderson et al. (2018), Casselman (2007), Zhang (2017). Armillaria mellea was considered a variable species for a long time but is now divided into at least a dozen distinct species, two of which are A. gallica and A. ostoyae. They have similar appearances and ecologies, but they lead independent lives and do not mate with each other.
14. The challenges faced by Dutch female scientists working on Dutch elm disease are reviewed by Holmes & Heybroek (1990).
15. Dutch elm disease: D’Arcy (2000). The two waves were at first both blamed on Ophiostoma ulmi, but when genetic tests showed that the pathogens from the first two waves could not mate with each other, they were acknowledged as separate species.
16. Chestnut blight: Anagnostakis (1987).
17. CHV1: Hypo means “reduced,” and fungal strains infected with the virus don’t spread as easily and are less virulent. Incidentally, SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) is also an rna virus.
18. Fungal viruses: Ghabrial et al. (2015).
19. White pine blister rust: Geils et al. (2010). Ash dieback: CABI Invasive Species Compendium (n.d.). Thousand cankers disease: thousandcankers.com.
20. Plant biomass: Bar-On et al. (2018).
21. Wood decay: Rayner &Boddy (1988).
22. In tropical countries, some mycologists train monkeys to climb trees to collect specimens.
23. Endophytes as biological control agents: Tanney et al. (2018).
4 | Farming
1. The “Seventh-Oldest Profession” in the chapter title comes from a sober evaluation of what actually are the world’s oldest professions; see Oldest.org (n.d.).
2. History of agriculture: Diamond (1997) and Harari (2014) provide contrarian views of the agricultural revolution, and some of their ideas about domestication are reflected in this book. Large (1940) is an exhaustive but fascinating historical review of the involvement of fungi in agriculture.
3. Ammonium is made up of nitrogen and hydrogen atoms. Nitrogen fixation: Wagner (2011).
4. For spectacular photographs of arbuscular mycorrhizae (am) fungi made using confocal microscopy, see Kokkoris et al. (2020) or check out Vasilis Kokkoris’s website (vasilis-kokkoris.com).
5. History of the discovery of am fungi and early research: Koide & Mosse (2004).
6. Interaction of am fungi with wheat: Fiorilli et al. (2018). am fungi and plant responses to stress: Begum et al. (2019). Commonmycorrhizal networks and am plants: Wipf et al. (2019).
7. Increasing phosphorus uptake using Penicillium: Leggett et al. (2007).
8. Grass endophytes: Bacon (2018), Clay (1990), Schardl & Phillips (1997).
9. Harari (2014) questions whether humanity domesticated wheat, or it domesticated us. Rust (see next section of the chapter) is such an intimate, targeted disease, we can add a dimension and ponder its contribution to this process.
10. Efforts to eliminate barberry: Mann (2018). “Execute this criminal bush”: Mann (2018, 114).
11. Review of rust: Schumann & Leonard (2011).
12. Explorer 11 flight: Kennedy (1956).
13. Wheat breeding: McCallum & DePauw (2008). When the resistance genes of the crop plant match the pathogenicity genes of the rust fungus, there is no disease. This is called one-for-one gene resistance. It is as if the plant has a gene that locks the rust out. It is analogous to the lock-and-key relationship between variants of human viral diseases and antibodies in vaccines.
14. Green Revolution: Mann (2018) vividly reconstructs the Green Revolution and the conflicts between environmentalists and industrialized agriculture. The stories about Norman Borlaug and rust in India are given in full detail in Mann’s book, which also includes interesting information on the potato famine, rusts, ergot, and plant breeding against fungal diseases in general.
15. Ug99:Pretoriusetal. (2000).
16. Charles Tulasne was a brilliant artist, and his vivid drawings gave him a reputation as the “Audubon of fungi.”
17. Review of ergot: Schumann & Uppala (2017).
18. History of ergot toxicity: Matossian (1982, 1991).
19. Discovery of lsd, microdosing of psychedelics: Pollan (2018). To learn more about stoned apes, search out the film Fantastic Fungi (Schwartzberg 2019) or the accompanying book (Stamets 2019).
20. Food contamination statistics: See the fao’s website Technical Platform on the Measurement and Reduction of Food Loss and Waste, fao.org/food-loss-and-food-waste. Mycotoxins: Pitt et al. (2012).
21. Aflatoxin: Kumar et al. (2017), Schrenk et al. (2020).
22. Vomitoxin: Sobrova et al. (2010).
23. Fumonisins: Marasas (1995). See also World Health Organization (2018).
24. There is no shortage of information about zombie fungi on the internet. The YouTube video “Cordyceps: Attack of the killer fungi” (BBC Studios 2008) illustrates the phenomenon in graphic time lapse. Sheldrake (2020, chapter 4) and Yong (2 017) will lead you to the research papers of David Hughes at Penn State, among others.
25. Agostino Bassi: Porter (1973).
26.Biocontrol using Beauveria Garcia-Estrada et al. (2016).
27. Biocontrol of grasshoppers and locusts: Lomer et al. (2001).
28. Use of fungi for biocontrol: Butt et al. (2001).
29.Nine major plant diseases: Savage (n.d.).
5 | Fermentation
1. Two recent books stretch the stories of yeast and alcohol to feature length. Money (2018) gives a general overview of the science, history, and social dimensions of humanity’s relationship with yeasts. Rogers (2015) fulfills a similar function for alcoholic beverages. Both books comment on the coincidental emergence of agriculture and brewing technology.
2. My calculations of the number of yeast cells and the relative numbers of stars and humans are based on various sources in the scientific literature. If a yeast cell lives four days, there are 91.5 generations per year. Estimates of the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy top out at about 400 billion.
3. Asian origin of brewer’s yeast: Duan et al. (2018).
4. Yeast hybridization and genomics: Peter et al. (2018).
5. Cork taint in wine: Alvarez-Rodríguez et al. (2002).
6. History of unleavened bread: Arranz-Otaegui et al. (2018).
7. Bread yeasts: Carbonetto et al. (2018), Money (2018).
8. Microbiology of sourdough: Carbonetto et al. (2018), Dunn (2018). The sourdough library is described by Ewbank (2018).
9. Artisanal cheeses: See the website Microbialfoods.org. Geotrichum in cheese: Boutrou & Guéguen (20 05). “Yeast-like” is a term used for fungi that make a budding yeast form and some hyphae, or cells similar to hyphae.
10. Exports of blue cheese: NationMaster (2019).
11. Mycotoxins in cheeses: Nielsen et al. (2006), Scott & Kanhere (1979)·
12. Some products marketed as soy sauce are not fermented. If the ingredients include hydrolyzed protein and don’t mention a brewing starter or culture, your sauce is an imposter produced by a nonfungal process.
13. Some mycologists consider Aspergillus oryzae and A. flavus the same species, and you sometimes see the latter name as an ingredient on soy sauce labels. Whatever the taxonomic confusion, soy sauce is aflatoxin-free.
14. Genomics of kōji: Gibbonsetal. (2012).
15. History of kōji and domestication of Aspergillus: Shurtleff & Aoyagi (2012).
16. Yeast fermentation and chocolate: Ludlow et al. (2016).
17. Pu-erhtea: Abe et al. (2008).
18. Coffee fermentation: de Oliveira Junqueira et al. (2019).
19. Coffee rust: Large (1940), McKenna (2020).
20. Food spoilage: Dijksterhuis & Samson (20 07).
21. Food waste data: See the fao’s Food Loss and Waste Database, fao.org/food-loss-and-food-waste/flw-data.
22. Xerophiles: Pettersson & Leong (2011). The xerophilic Aspergillus species are often called Eurotium.
23. Food preservation: Eschliman & Ettlinger (2015) give a colorful overview of some of the chemicals used in food. Not for the chemophobic.
24. Compost: Wright et al. (2016).
25.Home mushroom cultivation: Stamets & Chilton (1983).
26.Although tempeh is considered a traditional Indonesian food, it’s only been made for about two hundred years. Shurtleff & Aoyagi (1979) offer a comprehensive historical and nutritional review.
6 | The Secret House
1. There is abundant misinformation about moulds in houses on the Web. There are many technical books on indoor moulds, of highly variable quality; Flannigan et al. (2003) is authoritative. Bodanis (198 6; the origin of this chapter’s title) and Dunn (2018) both give entertaining reviews of various aspects of the science and biology of the built environment from a nontechnical (mostly nonfungal) perspective. Schilthuizen (2018) presents an overview of the adaptations of biodiversity to cities, focusing on birds, insects, and plants.
2. Fungal odors: Horner & Miller (2003). Some building inspectors use dogs trained to sniff out the telltale fungal volatiles. One wonders about the ethics of this; I wouldn’t train my dog for this job.
3. Sap stain: See chapter 14 in Zabel & Morrell (2012).
4. Dry rot: Vander Goot (2017).
5. Wood preservatives: Chapter 19 in Zabel & Morrell (2012).
6. Moulds in dishwashers: Zupančič et al. (2016).
7. Urbanization of Aureobasidium: Schilthuizen (2018).
8. DNA surveys of house dust: This paragraph describes an unexplored aspect of the next-gen data from the same samples studied by Amend et al. (2010). Dunn (2018) summarizes later DNA surveys of all kinds of organisms occurring in houses, not to mention the International Space Station, but focuses more on bacteria than fungi.
9. Wallemia: Desroches et al. (2014).
10. The official chemical name for this noxious polysaccharide is (1→3)-ß-D-glucan. See Maheswaran et al. (2014).
11. Domestic moulds, asthma, and allergies: Rosenblum Lichtenstein et al. (2015), Tischer et al. (2011). Dust mites, fungi, and allergies: Miller (2019), Van Asselt (1999).
12. Stachybotrys in buildings: Miller et al. (2003).
13.The efficiency of HEPA filters is tested and products are given a minimum efficiency reporting value (MERV) between one and sixteen, the higher the better. See EPA (2 021).
14.Hygiene and remediation: For reliable advice, the Mold Remediation in Schools and Commercial Buildings guide (EPA 2008) is an excellent starting point. I have also often consulted the Canadian Construction Association’s (2018) mould guidelines and appreciated their precise, pragmatic advice for remediating mould situations.
7 | Holobiont
1. Human Genome Project: Chial (2008).
2. Human Microbiome Project: Gevers et al. (2012). Microbiomes: Yong (2016) is an entertaining walk through microbiomics, mostly from a bacterial perspective, and gives a broad introduction to the emerging paradigm of holobionts. Animals with less extensive microbiomes: Cepelewicz & Quanta Magazine (2020).
3. The number of human cells is based on estimates by Bianconi et al. (2013). Relative number of human and bacterial cells in the human microbiome: Sender et al. (2016).
4. Fungi and the extinction of dinosaurs: Casadevall (2012). Mycobiomes: Cui et al. (2013), Enaud et al. (2018), Seed (2015).
5. Shedding of skin cells: aaas (2009).
6.Biology of Malassezia: Saunders et al. (2012).
7. Skin infections: Gräser et al. (2018).
8. Saccharomyces as a probiotic: Czerucka et al. (2007).
9. Candida as a symbiont: Hall & Noverr (2 017).
10. Histoplasmosis: Chapter 12 in Cordeiro (2019), Kauffman (2007). Blastomycosis: Schwartz & Kauffman (2020). Coccidioidomycosis: Kirkland & Fierer (2018).
11. The Latin name fumigatus means “smoky.”
12. Allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis: See the Aspergillus & Aspergillosis website, aspergillus.org.uk.
13. Fungal diseases and aids: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2020b), Limper et al. (2017), unaids (2021). Because of different statistical and reporting methods used at different times and in different places, there is often a lack of consistency in these estimates.
14. Pneumocystis: Sokulska et al. (2015). Pneumocystis names: Stringer et al. (2002).
15. Cryptococcus: May et al. (2016).
16.Fungal diseases of humans: The estimates for the number of infected humans are from Bongomin et al. (2017). The website of the International Society for Human and Animal Mycology (isham.org) is the starting point for reliable information and links regarding fungal infections of humans. Cordeiro’s (2019) book summarizes the diagnoses of fungal infections.
17. Amphotericin B: Laniado-Laborín & Cabrales-Vargas (20 09).
18.Antibiotics and Crohn’s disease: Jain et al. (2021). Dysbiosis: Backhed et al. (2012).
8 | Mycotechnology
1. “Mycelial Revolution” in the title for part 3 echoes the phrase “mycelium revolution,” coined by myco-entrepreneur Eben Bayer (2019). The word “mycotechnology” was introduced by Bennett (1998).
2. Biotechnology and Aspergillus niger: Cairns et al. (2018).
3. The scientific name of the penicillin fungus has changed several times, from P. rubrum to P. notatum, P. chrysogenum, and finally P. rubens (Houbraken et al. 2011).
4. Fleming (1929) is the famous paper describing penicillin.
5. The whole penicillin story is brilliantly told by Lax (2004). A closet-like museum now sits where Fleming made his discovery in St. Mary’s Hospital, London. It was returned to its former state from photographs, then allowed to become as dusty as it apparently was in Fleming’s time. Fleming’s grave is in the lower level of St. Paul’s Cathedral, if you care to pay your respects—I have.
6. Streptomycin: Pringle (2013).
7. Cyclosporin A: Heusler & Pletscher (2001).
8. Antibiotic resistance in medicine: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2020a), World Health Organization (n.d.).
9. Rising resistance to azole drugs: Meis et al. (2016). Use in agriculture: Verweij et al. (2009).
10. Drugs made by genetically modified yeast: Nielsen (2 013).
11. Development and marketing of Quorn: Wiebe (2004). Secondary metabolites of Fusarium venenatum: Miller & MacKenzie (2000).
12. Biotechnology of lignin: Irmer (2017).
13. Bioenergy and biofuels: Lange (2017), Salehi Jouzani et al. (2020).
14. Biotechnology using anaerobic gut fungi: Flad et al. (2020).
15. Mycoremediation: Dykes (2021). Oil spill cleanup: MatterofTrust.org (n.d.). Mushrooms and radioactive cesium: Garaudée et al. (2002). Cladosporium on spacecraft: Shunk et al. (2020; the allergenic potential of the fungus seems not to have been considered). Rhodotorula and radioactivity: Tkavc et al. (2018).
16. “Generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) is a designation for certain microbes or chemicals that do not require additional evaluation and approval by the United States Food and Drug Administration before they are used in foods or drugs.
17. Plastic bioremediation: Sanchez et al. (2020).
18. Detoxification of coffee waste: Brand et al. (2020). Dye absorption using coffee wastes: Cheruiyot et al. (2 019).
19. Two manifestos for a mycelial revolution are by Stamets (2005) and McCoy (2016). Paul Stamets’s (2008) ted talk is a popular summary of his take on mycotechnology.
20. Most information about artisanal beer comes from press releases, and there is not much published, peer-reviewed literature on this topic. Akpan & Ehrichs (2 017) discuss some brews based on insect yeasts; Metcalfe (2016) describes shipwreck beer. Other brewing yeasts: Holt et al. (2018).
21. Cheese mould domestication: Gibbons (2019). An example is a white-spored version of blue cheese, called Nuworld, developed in the United States.
22. New mycelial products: Cerimi et al. (2019).
23. A 2020 exhibit in London—Mushrooms: The Art, Design and Future of Fungi—was a stirring presentation of fungal art and the products of boutique fungal biotechnology (gaiaartfoundation.org/projects/mushrooms-the-art-design-and-future-of-fungi).
24. Mars myco-architecture: Malone (2018).
25. Fungal future: These actual and potential innovations come from the popular press and can be tracked down easily in text or video form; some are described at more length in other chapters and are referenced there.
9 | Thirty Thousand Feet
1. One explanation for crop circles is a fungal disease called “take-all” caused by the ascomycete Gaeumannomyces tritici.
2. Satellite monitoring of plant diseases: Oerke (2020).
3. Sustainable development goals: See the United Nations website The 17 Goals, sdgs.un.org/goals. Emerging threats: Fisher et al. (2016). Mass extinction: Kolbert (2014).
4. The term “Pangaeafication” seems to have originated with British botanist Mark Spencer (markspencerbotanist.com).
5. The labeling of humans as invasive is often debated, and which side you take may depend on how you interpret the United Nations Environment Programme’s (2016, para. 6) definition that an invasive speciesis “destructive to human interests and natural systems.”
6. Lists of regulated pests vary by country and change regularly. For a starting point, search the FAO’s International Plant Protection Con-vention website (ippc.int).
7. Potato wart: Franc (2007).
8. Amphibian extinction: Charles (2021), Kolbert (2014, chapter 1). Frog chytrid origin: O’Hanlon et al. (2018).
9. Control of Bd using bacteria: Yong (2016).
10. Bsal: Grant et al. (2016).
11. Fortey (2008) provides an amusing backroom glimpse into the esoteric world of natural history collections.
12. Neither the c bd nor Nagoya was signed by the United States.
13. Ownership of biodiversity: Gepts (2004). Material collected before 1992 is excused from benefit sharing, or “grandfathered,” under those treaties. But for older specimens, there are still frequent discussions about whether all biological cultural treasures should be repatriated.
14. Inoculation of fungi into Finnish forests: Abrego et al. (2016).
15. The phrase “Guardians of the Microbial Galaxy” is from Hariharan (2021).
16. Fungi and the bioeconomy: Meyer et al. (2020).
17. Online databases with occurrence information onfungi: iNaturalist (inaturalist.org , with many countries having their own subdomains); Global Biodiversity Information Facility (gbif.org); Mushroom Observer (similar to i Naturalist but only for fungi, mushroomobserver.org); Mycoportal (fungal specimens in North American biological collections, mycoportal.org).
18. Trillion Tree Campaign: trilliontreecampaign.org.
19. One Health: onehealthcommission.org.
20. Websites concerned with extinction and conservation: Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (cites.org); iucn Red List of Threatened Species (iucn.org/resources/conservation-tools/iucn-red-list-threatened-species); International Society for Fungal Conservation (fungal-conservation.org).