ANGWIN, Calif. — Jessica Allen crunched through fallen leaves among Manzanita trees hunting for something few have spotted before: the Manzanita butter clump — a rare and little-known yellow mushroom found, so far, only along North America’s Western coastlines.
It was last seen here in California’s Napa County two years ago, and Allen, a fungi scientist, was keen to find it. But within minutes, something caught her attention. She knelt, pulled a hand lens to her eye, and peered into a rock: lichens — a type of fungi — bursting with dazzling shapes, textures and colors.
She’s among a group enchanted by what they describe as the wondrous and mystical world of fungi, and they’re part of a growing community of people working to protect them. Nearly all life-forms depend on the estimated 2.5 million fungi species on Earth, and they contribute an estimated $54 trillion to the global economy as food, medicine and more, according to a study published in Springer Nature.
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Valerie McFarlane, top, and Edward Smyth, a member of the California Lichen Society, look toward lichen on a large rock.
Despite their essential role, they’ve been largely neglected by conservation efforts even as they face increasing threats from pollution, habitat loss and climate change.
Amateur researchers’ role in conservation
Fungi are neither plants nor animals. They’re an enormous kingdom of life-forms that include yeasts, molds, lichens and mushrooms. They’re among the planet’s great connectors and decomposers. Forests need them, and many animals rely on them for food and nesting.
People have derived medicines like penicillin from fungi. Some are used as building material or can store planet-warming carbon. But scientists have only documented about 155,000 species, 6% of the millions they believe are out there.
Conservation starts with knowing what species exist, where they are, how they’re doing and their threats.
Jessica Allen of the California Lichen Society holds up a firedot lichen found in Lower Lake, Calif.
On a chilly recent day, dozens of lichenologists and amateur lichen lovers with the California Lichen Society fanned out across a reserve to get close to rocks and trees.
Chemist Larry Cool’s interest in lichens stretches back 53 years to the day he learned they can be used as natural dyes.
“Lichen are more than the sum of its parts and are mysteriously unpredictable,” he said. “I get a lot of pleasure seeing the incredible variety of creation.”
Rock shield and rock tripe lichen are visible on a large rock in Lower Lake, Calif.
Ken Kellman, another amateur lichenologist and a retired air conditioning and heating mechanic, has geeked out over lichens the last 10 years or so, learning on his own and from friends.
“It just keeps your brain in that place where you’re saying ‘Wow!’ all the time. ‘That’s cool!’ And that’s my favorite place for my brain to be,” he said.
Fungi conservation ‘far behind’ but changing
Gregory Mueller has spent much of his career in fungi conservation. As co-chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s fungal conservation committee, he coordinates all fungal protection activity across their global network.
According to the group’s Red List of Threatened Species, 411 of 1,300 evaluated fungi across the world are at risk of extinction. Parts of Europe and elsewhere have focused on fungal conservation for decades, but the U.S. “is still far behind,” Mueller said. Only two fungi species are protected by the federal Endangered Species Act, while some states like California have legal protections, while others like New Jersey have added them to conservation plans.
Jessica Allen of the California Lichen Society arranges lichen found during a field trip in Lower Lake, Calif.
That’s slowly changing, in part because of increasing community science initiatives in the U.S. and abroad.
“There’s a lot of amateur mycologists … documenting (fungi) with photographs, putting their images on iNaturalist and our Mushroom Observer, and we’ve been able to use those data to better document fungal diversity,” Mueller said. We’re “starting to get some idea of what species might be in trouble.”
Most fungi are out of sight, spending most of their lives hidden as a vast, threadlike network called mycelium and producing mushrooms — called the fruiting body — only when conditions are just right.
Jessica Allen of the California Lichen Society arranges lichen found in Lower Lake, Calif.
That’s a big reason we know so little about them, said Nora Dunkirk, a botanist and mycologist at Portland State University’s Institute for Natural Resources.
Among their biggest threats includes climate change. Shifts in rainfall patterns, hotter temperatures and worsening wildfires can wipe them out or disturb the delicate relationships between forests and good fungi. Flooding can starve them of oxygen. Logging, development, invasive insects, pollution and overharvesting also threaten species.
Gina Min, a member of the California Lichen Society, looks closely at lichen on a large rock during a field trip Jan. 24 at the University of California, Davis’ McLaughlin Reserve in Lower Lake, Calif.
Perhaps the U.S.’s most well-known conservation story indirectly involving fungi happened in the 1990s. The Northern spotted owl was in danger, and officials realized that to save them, they had to manage the entire old-growth forest ecosystems they depended on — including fungi.
With the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, the federal government established rules to protect about 400 rare and little-known species across three states.
Laura Moreno-Baker, an ecologist with the Bureau of Land Management’s Ukiah Field Office, looks at lichen through a hand lens loupe during a California Lichen Society field trip in Lower Lake, Calif.
Back in California, Allen and her friends continued their quest for the elusive Manzanita butter clump, but they never found it.
“How many of my days have ended this way? So many,” said Allen. “It was still a great day.”
