Finding New Species of Fungi with The Kew Fungarium
Alisa Nappa
 
 This week on the Mushroom Revival Podcast, founder Alex Dorr is joined by lead mycologist Tuula Niskanen and Alyona Biketova of Kew's Fungarium. Holding over 1.25 million dried specimens, Kew's Fungarium collection is the largest, one of the oldest and most scientifically important, in the world. There are samples of fungi from all seven continents, spanning the entire fungal tree of life and representing well over half of known global diversity. Learn about some new species that have just been discovered and some of the coolest and strangest places to find fungi.
 
Photo from Kew Royal Botanical Gardens
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TRANSCRIPT
0:11 Welcome, welcome. You're listening to the mushroom revival podcast. I'm your host, Alex Dora, if you are not familiar, I'm obsessed with diving deep into the wonderful, wacky world of mushrooms and fungi. We bring on guests from all around the world to geek out with us and go down amazing rabbit holes of what are mushrooms, what are they doing all the incredible fungi out there and connecting with incredible people doing the work. And so we have two amazing people from queue for Garyun. To talk about, we already had an episode about Q Hungarian but there's so much to talk about. So we're going to do episode two. So welcome on the show. How you to do it. 0:57 Fine, thank you. How are you? 0:59 Good, good. Good to talk to you again. Tula and Aliona. Is that how do you pronounce your name? Alana? Alana? Beautiful. So Tula Why don't you give your introduction again, for those who have not met you yet? 1:18 Hi, I'm Dr. Tula niskanen. And I work as a Research Leader in the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens. I'm a taxonomist that aims to put the troops in order. I tried to understand the vast diversity of funghi provide names for the unknown ones and classify them in groups based on their relationships. If we think about the naming of the species, that is the first vital step in documenting all life on Earth, because without a name, it's difficult to share information of the species, for example for extinction, extinction, risk assessments, conservation measures and exploration of potential benefits for science and society. 2:11 Ilona, do you want to give a brief bio on who you are and what what you're doing in the mycology world? 2:17 Yeah, sure. Hello, everyone. My name is Alana Makita. I'm also a PhD like Phillip and work also this fun Yorick for quite many years. And currently I have a position of fungal genique Reiter in Kew Gardens. So we are still in the process of building fungal DNA bank here. But in general, I'm involved in many different projects dedicated to fungal biodiversity, taxonomy, evolution, etc. And of course, I'm also describing some new species to science and my favorite group of funghi are bullets. So I love them and for me, like they're like, mammals in mushroom world because they are very big, beautiful, very noticeable and actually quite fragile, especially regarding the climate changes and destruction of ecosystems. So they can grow usually in very well developed ecosystems on the highest level of succession. 3:22 So we we dove pretty deep into que Hungaria and in a previous episode, but for people that haven't listened to that episode yet, what is the que Fung Areum? What are you guys doing? 3:36 So cute. Hungarian is the largest collection of pride funghi in the world, containing more than one and a quarter million of specimens. There are specimens from all continents of the world. And some of them are even around 300 years old. And it's a very significant collection of worlds of fungal diversity, providing the basis for many, many types of research. 4:05 And there's estimated over 2 million species of fungi more depending on who you're you're asking. And for more than 90% of all fungi remained to be described. Right? So we're barely at the cusp of understanding fungi and mycology as a whole. And it's estimated, you know, every year we find about 2000 new species of fungi give or take. So it seems like we have you know, we have millions of species yet to describe what is the main bottleneck? Do you think that is preventing us from finding more and classifying these new species? 4:50 So we have several bottlenecks in our work. One is that we actually don't know always which one of the species have already being described. And this is something that really surprises people is like, how is how is that possible? How can How can't you know which ones have been described. But this is because a lot of species were described at the time, just when we thought that the fungal diversity was far smaller than it actually is. So the descriptions can be very vague. And based on the descriptions themselves, it's hard to interpret the name, and which bases that actually does mean. So, in order to get this in order, we would need to sequence the type specimens of funghi. The type specimens are anchors of the name. So when we get sequence level data from them, that's very usually unambiguous. And we can definitely get an idea which species those names represent. And once that's done, then it's easy to evaluate which ones are new to science. And when it comes to the finding of the new species, the fungi area are a treasure chest for hunting new species, the Hungaria our diversity hotspots, in which many new species to science are just waiting to be discovered. And producing sequence data from the collections could be needed to reveal the hidden gems. However, only part of the specimens can be the oak part of species can be stored and as specimens or cultures in one area around the world. So there are many, many species that actually can't be cultivated, or they can't be collected in the traditional ways we have been collecting funghi. And we are just starting to discover these funky. So when environmental specimens have been our samples have been collected. And when people do DNA sequencing, so called meta barcoding from them, there have been hundreds of 1000s of species found from those samples. So we need would need a large scale global sampling of environmental specimens from all the habitats of the world to actually capture all fungal diversity. But then, there is the final challenge, which is, which is how to name all of these species that we only know know, based on the sequence data, because how we are currently doing the work a it requires also additional knowledge than the sequence is alone. So there are working groups thinking about this problem and how to overcome this. So that instead of the, what we now would, it would now currently take about 1000 years to describe the remaining species, we are trying to get into a situation where we would be able to describe the remaining species within some 10s of years. I don't know if I should add something about the sequencing of like, why the sequence data is kind of revealing us away why I like how to study the fungal diversity. 8:29 Yeah, to something to add. 8:31 Yeah, I just wanted to add about another important bottleneck. It's a lack of actually taxonomists and mycology. That's the main also problem in our field that we don't have enough specialists and unfortunately, fundamental science is not funded. Well. So I'm pretty sure that different kinds of organizations also should pay more attention at funding of mycology because mycology is also our future. And fundamental science also serves applied science. So it's very important. 9:11 Yeah, and before we got on your you were describing how difficult it is to educate people how important mycology is. And it seems to you know, for for most places in the world not have a lot of importance. There are a few places that culturally there is there is a lot more significance with mushrooms and fungi, but most places in the world you know, it's not in traditional academia. And so yeah, we're not getting a lot of mycologist out there to do this work. I am curious though. Is there ever a time where you sequence of fungi, and it's kind of a two part call Shouldn't one after you get the sequence? Who do you? Who do you look to? To see if that sequence is already out there? Is there an international database that you can check? And kind of the part two of that question is, is there ever a time where you sequence of fungi, you check your sources, you think it's a new species, but there's someone out there in, say, Japan, who had already sequenced that fungi, and then you name it, they already named it, and then you find out two years later that you name the same fungi. 10:36 So about the sequence data, we do have a global sequence repositories. gene bank is the biggest one of them and most used, and then we have a spunk, funghi, specific unite database. So we use those to compare our own sequence data with the existing sequences to see whether someone has already found the species from somewhere else in the world. Then do we describe synonyms, so the same species twice, I would say it happens less nowadays than it used to happen. At the time, when the descriptions were based on morphology only. And there was probably not so much interaction between the scientist and the World Wide Web didn't exist, it was easier to kind of do parallel work, and then end up describing the same species. However, nowadays, the sequence data, it really does help a lot. Because when describing a new species, in vast majority of the cases, people deposit sequence data of those new species in the public sequence repositories. So as soon as that data enters the databases, all others will know that this species has already been described. 12:06 Right? Yeah, I can't even imagine pre internet. Trying to do science, or much of anything. Yeah, really. But yeah, that I felt like that. There was a big cleanup effort of of scientists trying to clean up, you know, all the overlapping work that happened pre Internet of people who just didn't know what people you know, overseas, were doing or, you know, in a different country, you just didn't know, right? I guess you could write letters to each other. But yeah, I mean, it'd be very hard to kind of get a global census of what is going on in a field at a given time. Yeah, we're so lucky to have the internet that we can have real data, real time knowing exactly what everybody's doing it at right now. That that is really lucky to kind of push, push this field forward. A lot quicker than 13:02 it has to work in order about. 13:07 Yeah, that's true. I just want to add about one interesting situation when, when I was a PhD student a long time ago, so I was describing one new journals that they wanted to call global letters. And after like one month of my work, my colleagues from intelligence published article board description of this genus, but they called it probe letters, probe letters, particular chromosome, it's also happens. 13:38 That that's such a bummer. I I've heard of that with a, a philosophy species as well is that I can't remember who it was. I saw a talk on it quite a while ago, but but the same thing happened. They were doing all this work to name this species or genus and then someone just published it like a week before they were going to publish it. And that's how it goes. I guess. That's that. That's a bummer. So I just read an article about how in 2022 There's approximately 90 plants and 24 fungi, named by q and 2022. And you you found species from all around the world, from rainforests in Central Africa, to the Atlantic forests of Brazil, and even caves in Southeast Asia? Where have been the strangest places that you've either found samples from or received samples from? 14:42 So I think that's the most interesting and exciting places where you can find the fun here are deserts. And when I went for the expedition in deserts in Israel, it was really exciting to find for example, Some busily dose or buttery or follow the species that look really odd. They look rather like a piece of wood, miss some like bomb of spores on the top. Yeah, so they're really exciting. And as for interesting places where I got specimens from, so it's Guatemalan, I have a colleague, Roberta Florida citizen who also works on beliefs in Guatemala. So she sent me a few very interesting specimens. And there are new species to sign. So we will be describing them in future. And as well, far east of Russia, I also had a very nice collaborator, you've given me run on a bullock unfortunately, she passed away. Just last year, yeah, she was also very exciting old lady who went to the most like remote forests and all those green islands and so on, and center interesting specimens of also new species to science. 16:01 About YouTuber 16:02 in, in general funghi, that is kind of a nice group to study, because you can find them from everywhere. And they grow in the most remote places of the world and most harsh environments. So you can basically find them from the bottom of the sea, in submerge food, you can find them in Arctic places desert, as Alana mentioned. So, but then you can also find them in your gardens. And I think the most kind of an interesting place where I have heard people collecting funghi were that feces of beds, in one of the caves. In China. That's that was when I was thinking like, people really go to whatever kind of places to to find funghi. 16:59 Yeah, it's funny, a couple of days ago, I was taking some probiotics, and I was looking at the capsule, and I was like, just fascinated that there are so many microorganisms, just in this tiny capsule, there's like 25 million bacteria and this tiny thing, and it just reminded me of how many species of fungi were in and on my body. And I'm curious, you were talking before to learn about trying to get over the hurdle of managing species that are hard or impossible to culture? And I was just curious if you have a section of the queue Fung Garyun, for fungi of the human body, and how do you how do you sample that? If if you can't, we we 17:50 don't know, section srixon for species that you cultivate from human body and Q. However, in general, about culturable species, so not all species of fungus can be cultured, this is a very, very rough estimate. But I would say that maybe like 1/4 1/3 of the species of funghi cannot be cultivated at all, at least. So there is a big, big amount of funghi that you actually have to go on site where they grow and then study them there. Because they are you can't really bring them in the lab. 18:30 Do you have like a blank? Like it's just a piece of paper in the fungi area of like, I like how do you how do you? Like same? Yeah, how do you store that in the in the Hungarian? 18:46 Oh, you mean what? 18:47 What would you do? Different borders? 18:51 Yeah, if anything? Yeah. 18:53 So if the species is something we can not cultivate, then you if it's a macro fungus, you can always store that fruiting bodies in a dried condition. So that's one option. And now, these kind of a more novel ideas are to collect environmental specimens. And they can be for example, bags of soil, you dry and then you store them. Or alternatively, you extract DNA from your environmental specimens. And then you build a DNA bank of the world's fungal biodiversity. 19:35 That makes sense. Yeah, I was I was more thinking of, you know, the really small yeasts or something like that where, you know, it's, it's in the soil, how do you you can't take a dry sample you can't, you know, but that makes sense. You you take a bag of soil. Interesting. Interesting, as has there been something that Q has been wanting to cultivate for a while Oh are wanting to culture and maybe you think you're getting close? 20:08 Unfortunately, this is something I'm not the right person to answer. So I'm studying the funghi that you can't really cultivate easily. But there are other people in queue who do more of the culturing of the funghi. 20:24 I would say that we have a colleague, Alexandra, who works on the toll project and currently she cultivates a lot of different species of fungi that are coming from Britain. So it's particularly project focused on British biodiversity. 20:44 Relating to British biodiversity, I just read an article about the top 10 plant and fungal species named new to science at Q in 2022 is a list that partners from cue put together and one of them on this list was the rare Queens hedgehog, hidden them read geneia I think is how you pronounce it. Named after the Queen of England. Elizabeth the Second what is the backstory of this mushroom? Why did it get named after the queen? And why was it picked one of the top 10 fungi of of 2022 21:31 so the species was named after the Queen because the Queen has really inspired people around the world for many generations. And the common name Queens hedgehog comes from this species name, Reggina and then the genus name hedghog. This genus hit no has a in English and this hedgehog name it comes from the spines that the fungus has underneath its cap. These are nice soft spines but they are a little bit reminder of hedgehog spy and Su that's giving the common name of the genus 22:17 and then if we 22:18 have another one of the mushrooms keep going. 22:23 Yes, you can continue 22:28 another one was a bruising ink bilete. So, Ilona, maybe you want to talk about this one found in Israel and Italy, which researchers together with the citizen scientist Regia Reggio Emilia in Italy has described I'm not I'm not going to try to pronounce the name he has a really long one the Latin name but what is the backstory of this mushroom 22:59 Okay, so the name of this mushroom is Sanibel lettuce Mediterranean says first it was found on the field trip in Israel in northern Israel so I went together with my friends and mushroom hunters local mushroom countries Zohar and Roma they're very famous in Israel. So we found this interesting in bullied and at first I saw that it probably something like commonly in Europe we have sent Ebola to spillover Lantos. So I thought that probably is the same. It looks a bit quite similar from the same genus of course. But then of course, like when we started it more in the lab, we when we sequenced it with find out that it's a new species to science. And then I was busy also with many many other projects and didn't have much time to describe this new species. And then I said okay, like we need we need to do it with my also colleague and friend from Italy. And then when I actually blast it sequence of our Israeli specimens in June with sequences in GenBank. So found out that there is one sign up letters sequence common from a specimen from 17. Yep. And then I contacted colleague from Sardinia so we actually describe this new species together. 24:30 Amazing and what What color does it Bruce? 24:36 So Bruce, like really, really intense dark blue, but when you just cut it, it feels it's first it's like, it has beautiful, vibrant lemon yellow flash, but then it Bruce blue and then of course it fades a bit to kind of greenish yellowish teens. 24:56 So I know there was a paper that was released A few years ago on why Salafi species bruise blue? Why do why do you believe it's bruise blue? Do you know what the chemical reaction is that? Or is there some, like survival mechanism? Like, does it deter insects or something like that? 25:22 That's a very good question. So but we can't answer clearly on it yet the thing that they're not studied yet, well, in general, pigments are funghi. They, they're not covered very well, unfortunately, in publications, I could say like this. So there are a lot of bullets general that has those secondary metabolites that oxidize on air and turns bloom, the same biological reasons for this phenomenon is still unknown. Probably it's could be certain type of protective mechanisms against of mammals, maybe some mammals when they see, for example, I don't know this certain mammals that have color vision, when they see that, like, one won't eat this mushroom, and then see that it turns mediately blue, maybe they're afraid to eat it. So mushroom has, from one side, like more chances to survive, but from another side. When mushroom is eaten by mammals, it also has more chances to spread its own spores on much wide area. Because of course, like, Mama will eat it and then spread this feces somewhere far away. So we still we have so many questions about fungal pigments about coloration, why they're so colorful, is ordered only for pricing us or it definitely has some more deep biological mechanisms, maybe also connected, of course, with this spreading of their spores, and different survival mechanisms also with certain biochemical reactions in their fruit bodies and so on. 27:10 That's, that's interesting. Yeah, the in philosophy, I know that whatever that pigment is, causes micro tears in the guts of insects, which I, you know, I'm sure if I was an insect, and I had a bunch of tears in my stomach, I would probably want to stop eating eating that mushroom. But it's, it's interesting, you know, if if I was the mushroom, I would, I would want those insects to help spread the spores. But I guess they have another mechanism to to just spread the spores, and maybe the same with those particular beliefs. It might have the same effect on insects, I'm not sure. But that that'd be interesting to find out. For sure. 28:00 Definitely. 28:02 So, q as well, you know, you'll work with plants a lot. And there's a lot more funding. With plant research. There's a lot more researchers out there working with plants that are knowledgeable about plants. Is there cross division communication with the plant division of Q and the fungal division have que se you know, every time they find a new plant, do they send that species or do they communicate with the with the mycologist to say sample the, the, you know, the mycorrhizal fungi on this plant and the endophytic fungi on this plant. So, we can both find new species at the same time. 28:50 I really like this question, because it evokes some new ideas, what we could do in the future. So, currently, this is not done, but certainly something we should start to consider for the future. Especially if the species of plants are such that they are now found from the nature and they are something that you can sample in there. Because in sometimes four of course, when new species of plants are described, they are described from the specimens that have already been collected, like let's say 20 3040 years ago. So in in those cases, we may only have the dried specimen in hand easily to kind of observe the plant but in cases when already in the field, people nowadays realize that our this might be a new species to science, then yes, it would be kind of interesting to start to sample the the fungal community associated with it with these plants as well. So thank you for giving us this idea 29:59 of Course. Yeah, 30:01 this is nice question. Also, the group of Esther Gaia had interesting collaborative project with our cue seed bank, where they also studied some of the physical funghi that actually can infect scenes. And they even describe the new species of fusarium, if I'm not mistaken, right? Last year. Right? 30:27 Did you say fungi acidic fungi that attacks the seeds or symbiotic fungi? 30:35 That actually in the fight, they can do both. They can be both in Beyonce and parasites, depending also on the stages that they wrote. For example, if see this still alive, it could be just like some Beyonce, and then when see the dead, it can eat it. 30:57 Right? Yeah. And in many cases, we don't actually know what the endo FIDIC funghi do so they can be beneficial. And as Alana said, some of them can turn out to be more of a pathogenic ones later on in their life cycles, but very little is known about the endophytic fungus. So that's also one of those areas of mycology, where definitely, much more research would be needed. 31:28 It it does blow my mind because it every time I hear anything about endophytic fungi, it seems like they're doing so much for the plants. I'm surprised that no one not a lot of people are studying it. Right. It's, it's, we, we brought on an expert about endophytic fungi, and it was hard to find somebody and every time they talk to other mycologist it's rare that I find someone actually studying that. And it might be something I've talked to some lichenologist where, you know, like pure mycologists and pure plant people. When you talk about liking, they always, you know, they're like, oh, that's more of a plant thing. Or the plant people are like, Oh, that's more of a mushroom thing. And so it's kind of this gray area where maybe endophytic fungi get placed where it's like, oh, that's more of a plant thing. Or, you know, that's more of a fungi thing. And no one really wants to touch it. I don't know what what the reason is, but it Yeah, it's so fascinating. Every time I hear anything about endophytic fungi, it seems to be like this. neglected, you know, part of a mega science that there's so much to discover. And, and how it's really affecting the life of plants that we just don't know about. So yeah, I I'm rooting for anybody who is interested in mycology, that is maybe listening to this podcast and is looking for a type of field to get into or a specific focus. I vote endophytic fungi because I think there is totally if needed, but if you're getting into mycology in general, you're needed everywhere. mycologist in general, 33:24 that's absolutely true. And Alex, I would be very glad also to share contacts of my friends and colleagues who work on the physic fungus so you can make a podcast dedicated to this topic. 33:36 Beautiful. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. 33:40 So funny when welcome made a comparison with the lichens and endophytic funghi because Esther Gaia who did this study with her colleagues about the endophytic funghi of the millennium seed bank seeds She is originally lichenologist So but then also got a study of endophytic funghi of thieves and that was really like a mind blowing thing as well to find so many species species of fungus inside the seeds and be able to cultivate them as well so pretty something living from those frozen seeds so might be also a person worth two contacts 34:23 app Yeah, that I think that would be a really interesting topic. I I love seeing pictures of seed banks. You know I there's one famous one I think in like Iceland or the North Pole or Antarctica or somewhere but it's in the middle of nowhere in the freezing cold and it's like a secure bunker and it's just really cool how well they protected and how secret it is and how well fortified it is just holding seeds it's amazing you know if World War Three happen You know, there's nucular waste everywhere, at least we have, you know, a secure place where we're where all the seeds are kept, you know, which I think is really important that whoever thought of that was was, was thinking clearly about securing our future for sure. Yes, cute. Yeah. In the in the topic of everything going wrong, what has been the hardest part of this journey? And it can be a day to day thing or a certain event in the past that or something that is currently happening. But what has been the hardest part of your journey as a mycologist? Working with Q or outside of Q? 35:55 Okay, I think that the first the most difficult is to find job in mycology, especially in taxonomy. And the second thing is difficult to finish PG project dedicated to biodiversity of funghi. For example, Justin three years as I read, because we also very dependent on climate conditions on the season, sometimes you have very good mushroom season, sometimes you have very bad mushroom season. So it's quite unpredictable. And if you end up in the situation when you don't have enough specimens for your study. So this is horror. 36:35 Or someone describes the genus before you. 36:39 Exactly. Yeah. And then you already spent a lot of time your your time to describe this new genus, and then this bomb happened. 36:54 Did you want to give up at that point? Like what? What was your reaction once you found out? 37:00 No, I just started to collaborate with those researchers. And then oh, such sedation. So we do everything together? 37:10 Yeah, if you can't beat them, join them. Exactly. Tula, what about for you? Was there a certain event that happened that was, you know, made you almost want to give up or more of a daily thing that that makes us work really hard? 37:32 For me, the most challenging, everyday challenge is the existing names of funky, because sometimes finding out about the old names that are more than 100 years old, it can be quite like a detectives work. Because there are old books which are quite rare. Nowadays, easily, more easily available via internet, but especially before were really hard to get. Of course, those are often written in Latin. But there are also old texts in French, in Italy, in Germany. So going through the old literature, and trying to find names for your funghi that can sometimes take a lot of time and be quite a daunting task. 38:29 Is this I know Q has a pretty impressive library of a ton of Mike illogical texts. Are these all digitized? Are they being worth? I know you said, there's someone in queue who's the digital expert, so to speak. But when you're looking for that new name, do you have to go to the library and flip through physical books? Or is there an online database that you can that you can look through, like scans of all those old books? 39:02 Nowadays, the life is much easier. So there is Biodiversity Heritage Library online, where a lot of all literature can be found. But I have to say that when I entered Q eight years ago, I was really nerd about the fact that Q has a really good MBQ library. Because yeah, I would say that whenever I have needed publication on mycology, on taxonomy, I have been able to find it from Q's library. So that's a huge plus and a help for a taxonomist to be in a place where you have the world's largest Hungarian but also vast collection of literature. 39:49 Yeah, i i It is really interesting. I went to a a quarter SEPs me museum and a reishi Museum in China. And they had at the very end, they had kind of a, a display of a bunch of books under glass. And I took pictures of these books. And it was really interesting. When I came back. I tried to Google them, and I couldn't find them on the internet. And it must happen a lot where yeah, like, like, you don't know that that book exists. And you have to actually go to the country and see it in a museum. And so yeah, I could see how that would be difficult. You know, it's and this is our conversation in the beginning of pre internet, like, how do you know that that exists? But even with the internet, if no one published it, it's it on there? How do you know it exists, right. So I can see how that would be really difficult, really annoying. 40:55 For the species, and general families that have been published and the higher levels of classification. We do have namers repositories, index, Bangaram, and myco. Bank. And basically, from there, you can see where these taxon has been published. So you can see the literature citation there. And then, yes, it's kind of a nice idea that still nowadays, there are pieces of literature, that when you find them from those repositories and Google them, you just don't find them very easily. So yeah, there are pieces of history that you still can't access easily via internet. But that's, I think, in a way, good and evoking thing that are not not always in internet yet. 41:53 Have you? Is there like a certain place where time and time again, you look and you're like, oh, man, all these books from Russia are just not published? I need to take a trip to Russia or someplace, you know, China or something like that? Where has there ever been a funded trip by q to go to see these books that are not online yet, or kind of lead you to a dead end? 42:19 Oh, I will read about literature from Yeah, just so when I was also a PhD student, I visited botanical Institute to Komarov botanical Institute in St. Petersburg, and they have absolutely fantastic library. It's true that many literature are not digitized yet. But for example, if you need also some particular articles or book from Russia, so it's quite easy to just contact people who work there, and they can scan everything that you need. Go, I 42:52 will also say that the global community of taxonomists and researchers and the curators in the fungi area and librarians, these are very, very important to us. Because you can always send a request somewhere and try to ask have you is Does anyone have access to this literature? And then of course, you may also need help in translation. So there might be books in Russia, for example, I'm not able to, to read those. So then I will need also help to from some of my colleagues, I can. Yes, I know. That's why it's good that we are an international community. So usually always there is someone who can help you to kind of find out what actually is written in these books. Sometimes this also applies to specimens. So one time I got, I got a query from a plant scientist that was interested in knowing what was written in a label of a plant species collec or plant specimen collected from Finland, because that label was written in Finnish. And he was not able to interpret the actual place and ecology from where this plant had been collected. So I came here Yeah. 44:26 That's true. So once I also had situation when I was sampling specimens, of course from our from Garyun. And there was one on database the specimen from Japan and Thanks, God, we have myco who could translate me the label from Japanese to English? Yes. So that's really cool that in queue, we have a lot of international people, and we're helping each other plus, we also collaborate with many mycologist all over the world. So we try to help as much as we can 45:01 that that seems really rewarding. You know it? Yeah, it's, you know, I'm sure it's not perfect, but most most workplaces, you know, I don't know if everyone has the best relationships with their co workers. And if you're thinking of like a typical cubicle kind of work, it's Yeah, it doesn't seem like the most fun, rewarding place to work. And it seems like, you know, from talking to you, too, it sounds like this is a collaborative effort from people that are passionate about what they're doing, and just want to dive deeper into science and make it more accessible to people and are working together to have that combined goal, you know, with that passion of what what you're really good at, and sharing with each other to make this accessible to the world. So I think that's really cool. And it leads me to kind of the counterpoint of my last question, which is what is the most rewarding part of this work? And it can be a specific day that you remember, in the past, where, you know, part of your research that you've been researching for years, you finally figured something out, or it's a day to day, you know, part of your work day to day is is just super rewarding. 46:31 Okay, so I think that for me, one of the most rewarding days was when I found the this is the first new species to science when I was a PhD student. And so that was really exciting, of course, to understand that you found something new that no one else before. And the second, when I got two publications, let's say two articles published the same day in two different fields of science, because I also have background not only in mycology, but in gene engineering. And it came out last year, that is, one article in mycology was published and another article in gene engineering opportunity here coli at the same day. So it was also really exciting. 47:29 Tula about you Tula? 47:32 For me, the most rewarding moments are when I see that someone is using the name of the species that me and my colleagues have described. Because that makes the work to kind of come through that I see that are there is some benefit of me and my colleagues doing this work because now someone actually is using the name of that species. And it's taking things forward. 48:01 Yeah, plus, I think that also what is very rewarding is when you have students and when you see their success, that they could actually learn and progress in mycology. So it's also quite rewarding. And when you meet with citizen scientists, and you see that their sparkling eyes, the interesting, in funky, and that you those work that you do, it's also very important for other people. Plus also recitations for example, when you identify some mushrooms that someone ate, and you kind of people of course, like who ate therefore it over there, it's edible or poisonous, and then you finally identify like, Don't worry, it's not poisonous mushrooms, you will survive. This also quite rewarding. 48:56 What what exciting things you two have on the horizon? For for both Q and your own personal research. 49:08 Currently, I'm most excited about the study of the fungal diversity of Madagascar. I'm doing that with a postdoctoral researcher on anatra, Liberia Arisa. And I'm excited because going to Madagascar is like going to another planet. When it comes to funghi. More than 98 percentage of the diversity of the island is still unknown. So most of the things you see there and you collect there are or will be new to science. So that's, that's very exciting. And also, there is one memory that connects to the Malagasy funghi and that was when I was there for the first time. And when I started to realize how threatened or the habitats in Madagascar are now Because of the mainly the human actions and they also vulnerable because of the climate change. And when we went to a protected area, and I saw those mushrooms there, and I started to think like, Hmm, we might be the last generation that actually sees all these endemic funghi in the growing places and alive, that also made me sad, but also kind of started a warrior sparkle in me, spark in me that we really need to help and educate the local people to to study their fungal diversity, and to be able to affect on the conservation of their own nature. That's exciting work 50:54 support you. 51:01 Ilona Hubba, yet 51:02 we need to help. Yeah, I just want to say that it's true that we need to help more citizen scientists, or, of course, mycologists in different countries, especially those where biodiversity of fungus not started well. And also one of my future dreams is to go to field trip to Guatemala, we are already planning for few years with my colleagues to have such a field trip. And it's would be really, really exciting. I have never seen tropical forests yet. So I also love not only fungal biodiversity, but I love birds, of course mammals and plants. So I want to see this really interesting ecosystem. 51:48 Yeah, yeah, you to have amazing trips ahead of you. And Tula, have you? Have you been to Madagascar? Or is this a future project? 51:58 So I've been there twice. And first, Anna was a PhD student. She started in 2018. She graduated last year. And now she's continuing as a postdoctoral researcher. And she's the first fungal taxonomist in Madagascar. So I'm really proud of her. 52:20 That's so cool. Yeah, both both Madagascar and Guatemala are incredible places. And I'm sure you'll find some, some really, really interesting species there. And that's so exciting. Is there any any? Where if people want to learn more about Q and both of you and your own personal research, where can people find out more 52:47 just visit the queue, web pages. So you will find a bunch of information on on funghi on the queue funk area mycologists who work in queue all that information from there 53:03 that's true philosophy also can check ResearchGate and look at our publications maybe also the load something and read and then decide do you want to do some similar research or not? Would you like to collaborate or not? And then 53:21 incredible to pretty soon. Keep going? 53:28 Yes. And stay tuned for the state of the world. So plants and fungi, a report that will be published in October 2023 is led by que but it's a collaboration with a lot of researchers all around the world. 53:47 I'm really excited about that. And the last one wasn't, it was the last one was in 2020 Right? 53:56 That's correct. It come as a 53:58 report since every three no 220 Yeah, I'm really excited to read that. Well, thank you everyone for for tuning in. And tuning in. That was another episode of the mushroom revival podcast. Wherever you're tuning in from around the world, just thank you. And if you if you like this show, and you want to support the show, we don't have a Patreon or any way that you can donate but this this show is sponsored by a mushroom revival. And so if you want to help mushroom revival out we have a website at mushroom revival.com And we have a bunch of goodies from from mushroom gummies to capsules, tinctures powders, and if you want to surprise a loved one, you can get him get him some goodies. We're also doing a giveaway where you can win some goodies for free and so the link is in the bio if you want to click that and enter the giveaway to win some goodies. And then just tell us tell A friend either about this podcast this episode, or just about mushrooms and fungi in general. Tell a stranger on the street of any interesting facts that you learned and hopefully inspire more people to become mycologist to become citizen scientists to become PhD mycologists who get into mushrooms in any way possible to form a greater Alliance and symbiotic relationship with the world around us. So with that much love and made the spores be with you Transcribed by https://otter.ai
