Kew Gardens to create biggest fungi collection in world

Kew Gardens is to create the biggest fungi collection in the world with more than 1.25 million different species.

Around 400,000 new specimens will be added to Kew's existing stock of more than 800,000 specimens to form a giant scientific collection.

 

Researchers are confident the enormous collection of 1.25 million specimens, which would overtake the million fungi specimens held by the US National Fungus Collection, will help them develop new life-saving drugs and disease resistant crops. Statins and penicillin are among the drugs that have already been developed due to fungi.

 

Among the specimens being delivered is mould – Penicillium notatum - that helped Sir Alexander Fleming discover penicillin and led to the development of a raft of lifesaving antibiotics.

 

Others are samples of microscopic fungi that in the early 20th century were discovered to be behind the potato blight that led to the Irish Famine, and another species that led to Dutch Elm Disease.

 

Researchers are excited about the extent of the collection which will not only be the biggest but the most comprehensive in the world, containing more types than anywhere else.

 

It will provide an unrivalled resource for scientists trying to identify the properties of fungi that could lead to new medical treatments or further reveal its importance to ecosystems.

 

Kew is taking the specimens from the collection of the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux International (Cabi) in a merger designed to improve scientific study of fungi.

 

Despite their unprepossessing appearances fungi are among the most important organisims on the planet and without them most animal and plant life would die.

 

Dr Brian Spooner, of Royal Botanical Gardens Kew, said: “Fungi are essential to probably everything on the planet. Fungi live in association with plants. We now know that at least 90 per cent of all plants worldwide need a fungus for the roots to grow properly.

 

“It’s a symbiotic relationship between the plant and the fungus. The fungus pulls in the minerals and water the plants need and in return it takes carbon from the plants which it needs. All plants everywhere have some sort of fungal partner.

 

“All organic matter when it dies must be rotted away and the nutrients recycled. That work is done in the terrestrial ecosystem almost entirely by fungi. We know bacteria and some other organisms do it but at least 90 per cent is done by fungi. We couldn’t do without them. Fungi really are amazing.”

 

He added: “To discover their uses we need to understand them. That’s why these collections are so important. They are not just dead scraps of fungus. This collection will be the prime resource for fungus worldwide.”

 

There are estimated to be 1.5 million species of fungi around the world and more than 90 per cent of them have yet to be discovered and described by scientists.

 

About 100,000 species have been identified, of which 50,000 to 70,000 will be contained in the collections held at Kew – there remains dispute about whether some species have been double counted, in part because many fungi some in two forms.

 

Fungi are neither plants nor animals, and have been assigned their own kingdom for scientific classification. While many people think of fungi as plants they are actually slightly more closely related to animals. Organisms in the fungi kingdom include yeast and lichens.

 

Mushrooms and toadstoods are the “fruit bodies” of fungi and spurt out millions of spores to reproduce. They are the most visible parts of fungi but most of the organism is hidden in the ground where large networks of mycelium, a microscopic thread-like structure, extend in search of nutrients.

 

The largest “fruit body” put out by fungi is that of the giant puffball which can be two feet or more in diameter and it has been calculated to produce more than 7,000 billion spore.

 

The biggest fungus of all is a honey fungus, Armillaria bulbosa, which spreads through the ground extensively. A single honey fungus has been measured as reaching over several hundred acres.

 

The Cabi collection is contained in 4,500 boxes. Delivery to Kew starts on Monday and should be finished on Friday.