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	<channel>
		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/fungi/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Sun, 13 Sep 2026 15:26:05 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<title>News on Fungi</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/fungi/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>Dark earth: Ancient Amazonian soil can boost forest restoration, study finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/dark-earth-ancient-amazonian-soil-can-boost-forest-restoration-study-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/dark-earth-ancient-amazonian-soil-can-boost-forest-restoration-study-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Jul 2026 18:18:01 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Evanildo da Silveira]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/08100220/20260708_044730-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=322832</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Atlantic Forest, Brazil, Global, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Culture, Earth Science, Ecosystems, Environment, Forest Recovery, Forest Regeneration, Forests, Fungi, Indigenous Peoples, Microorganisms, Rainforests, Research, Restoration, Science, Solutions, Sustainability, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Pink ipê trees grow taller and faster thanks to a microscopic boost from an ancestral formula.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Soil created centuries ago by Indigenous peoples in the Amazon could help speed up recovery of degraded lands, changing the way ecological restoration is approached in Brazil. A study conducted by researchers from the University of São Paulo’s Center for Nuclear Energy in Agriculture (CENA-USP), Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) Western Amazon, and the National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA) found that small amounts of Amazonian dark earth (ADE) significantly increased native tree growth under real field conditions. The results, published in January 2026 in the academic journal Springer Nature, caught experts’ attention especially regarding Handroanthus avellanedae, locally known as pink ipê, a species found in both the Amazon and the Atlantic Forest. After just 180 days, seedlings grown with modest amounts of ADE were up to 55% taller and 88% larger in stem diameter than those grown without the anthropogenic soil — that is, soil resulting from human action, the study found. Findings were also notable for paricá (Schizolobium amazonicum), another Amazonian species widely used in reforestation and also in the timber industry due to its fast growth. On average, they grew 20% more and had stems that were 15% larger in diameter. Professor Tsai Siu Mui, one of the study’s co-authors, stands between trees cultivated with Amazonian dark earth (left) and without that dark soil (right) after six months of experimentation. Image courtesy of Tsai Siu Mui. The study underscores the scientific potential of Amazonian dark earth, also known as “Indigenous dark earth.” It is an extremely fertile, organic-rich dark&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/dark-earth-ancient-amazonian-soil-can-boost-forest-restoration-study-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/dark-earth-ancient-amazonian-soil-can-boost-forest-restoration-study-finds/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-322832</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Linking habitats strengthens wildlife microbiomes, helps fight disease: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/linking-habitats-strengthens-wildlife-microbiomes-helps-fight-disease-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/linking-habitats-strengthens-wildlife-microbiomes-helps-fight-disease-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Apr 2026 14:29:28 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/23133143/4-Atlantic-Forest-frog-Dendrophryniscus-haddadi-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318009</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Planetary Boundaries]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Global, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amphibians, Conservation, Diseases, Forest Fragmentation, Fragmentation, Freshwater, Frogs, Fungi, Global Environmental Crisis, Habitat Loss, Microorganisms, Planetary Health, Research, Tropical Conservation Science, Tropical Forests, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A new study has found that when deforestation and land use change break up key habitats vital to amphibian life cycles, those disconnects can play havoc with the animals’ microbiome, leaving them more susceptible to disease. This troubling finding could also apply to a host of other species, the study researchers say, but may also [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A new study has found that when deforestation and land use change break up key habitats vital to amphibian life cycles, those disconnects can play havoc with the animals’ microbiome, leaving them more susceptible to disease. This troubling finding could also apply to a host of other species, the study researchers say, but may also have positive implications for conservation to counteract the problem. Habitat split, first associated with amphibian decline in a 2007 study, occurs when multiple “classes” of aquatic and terrestrial habitat — such as forests, streams and ponds — vital to a species’ life cycle are separated by human activities (such as agriculture), causing the species to decline. Studies have already shown that this phenomenon is a driver of localized frog extinctions in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. In the new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists investigated the effect of “habitat split” on the microbiome of four frog species (Haddadus binotatus, Rhinella ornata, Boana faber and Ischnocnema henselii), all dwelling in the highly fragmented Atlantic Forest. They found that where forest and aquatic habitats are linked, frogs are more likely to host skin microbes that inhibit the deadly fungal pathogen, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. This fungus, known as chytrid, is responsible for large-scale declines of hundreds of amphibian species across the globe. Importantly, the skin microbiome of frogs living in areas where these habitats were split hosted fewer pathogen-fighting microbes, leaving the frogs more susceptible to infection. Two of the frog species sampled also&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/linking-habitats-strengthens-wildlife-microbiomes-helps-fight-disease-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/linking-habitats-strengthens-wildlife-microbiomes-helps-fight-disease-study/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318009</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>A reforestation corridor in Madagascar offers a future for lemurs and locals</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/a-reforestation-corridor-in-madagascar-offers-a-future-for-lemurs-and-locals/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/a-reforestation-corridor-in-madagascar-offers-a-future-for-lemurs-and-locals/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Apr 2026 22:07:43 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Marina Martinez]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/14174849/1-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317476</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Madagascar]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Animals, Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Degraded Lands, Ecotourism, Education, Environment, forest degradation, Forest Fragmentation, Forests, Fragmentation, Fungi, Health, Lemurs, Mammals, Plants, Primates, Reforestation, Restoration, Trees, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In eastern Madagascar, Andasibe-Mantadia National Park and the Analamazoatra Special Reserve shelter around a dozen species of lemurs, alongside an extraordinary array of animals and plants, many of which are found nowhere else on Earth. Once connected by continuous rainforest, the landscape was fractured in the 1960s, when large stretches were cleared for agriculture and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In eastern Madagascar, Andasibe-Mantadia National Park and the Analamazoatra Special Reserve shelter around a dozen species of lemurs, alongside an extraordinary array of animals and plants, many of which are found nowhere else on Earth. Once connected by continuous rainforest, the landscape was fractured in the 1960s, when large stretches were cleared for agriculture and cattle pasture. What remained was a patchwork of forest fragments separated by degraded land, limiting wildlife movement and threatening biodiversity. Today, a coalition of researchers, conservationists and local communities is working to reverse that fragmentation by rebuilding a forest corridor from the ground up. The reforestation corridor connecting Andasibe-Mantadia and Analamazoatra, launched in 2023, aims to restore 150 hectares (370 acres) of native forest and reconnect these two critical habitats. Led by the Mad Dog Initiative (MDI), a Madagascar-based wildlife conservation NGO, in partnership with The Dr. Abigail Ross Foundation for Applied Conservation (TDARFAC, a nonprofit conservation organization focused on Madagascar), Association Mitsinjo and Ecovision Village, the project represents a unique convergence of science, private investment and community action. It began not with a grand plan, but with an exchange of ideas and a shared commitment. As Kim Valenta of MDI recalled, she first recognized the physical disconnect between these two protected areas in 2017, while leading sterilization and vaccination campaigns to limit the impacts of free-roaming pets on wildlife in the region. She then met others who were also committed to restoring the broken landscape. “We looked at some maps, and shortly after I&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/a-reforestation-corridor-in-madagascar-offers-a-future-for-lemurs-and-locals/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/a-reforestation-corridor-in-madagascar-offers-a-future-for-lemurs-and-locals/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317476</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Chile’s ancient conifers host underground web of life that sustains forests: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/chiles-ancient-conifers-host-underground-web-of-life-that-sustains-forests-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/chiles-ancient-conifers-host-underground-web-of-life-that-sustains-forests-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Apr 2026 10:26:36 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sofia Moutinho]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/09101258/61_Chile_Fungi_DJI_0270-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317250</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Chile, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Carbon Sequestration, Conservation, Deforestation, Ecosystems, Forest Carbon, Forest Loss, Forests, Fungi, Logging, Old Growth Forests, Planetary Boundaries, Plants, Protected Areas, Research, Temperate Forests, and Trees]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In an isolated valley within Alerce Costero National Park in southern Chile, one tree towers above all others. At 30 meters (100 feet) high, this alerce abuelo or grandpa alerce, is estimated to be more than 2,400 years old. Its massive trunk and branches are covered in lichens, mosses and even other woody plant species [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In an isolated valley within Alerce Costero National Park in southern Chile, one tree towers above all others. At 30 meters (100 feet) high, this alerce abuelo or grandpa alerce, is estimated to be more than 2,400 years old. Its massive trunk and branches are covered in lichens, mosses and even other woody plant species that take root in the crevices of its bark. But beneath it, hidden underground, lies another hidden treasure: a community of fungi known as arbuscular mycorrhizae. These kinds of fungi establish unique partnerships with plants that are fundamental to keeping forests alive. More than 80% of all terrestrial plants are associated with these fungi, which form underground networks, penetrating roots and creating specialized structures called arbuscules that supply nutrients and water to the plant in exchange for carbon and sugars. Now, for the first time, scientists have sampled and analyzed the fungal community beneath alerce trees (Fitzroya cupressoides) in the Chilean national park, the country’s largest protected area for temperate coastal forests. Their research revealed that the ancient alerce abuelo hosts two and a quarter times more fungal diversity than its smaller, younger counterparts, highlighting the uniqueness of this old tree. “All the diversity you see above in the tree branches also happens belowground,” says lead author Camille Truong, a mycologist with the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria and the University of Melbourne in Australia and the study’s lead author. “All these root systems and the soil offer a habitat for thousands of fungi, and also&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/chiles-ancient-conifers-host-underground-web-of-life-that-sustains-forests-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/chiles-ancient-conifers-host-underground-web-of-life-that-sustains-forests-study/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317250</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Climate or biodiversity? Global study maps out forestation’s dilemma</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/climate-or-biodiversity-global-study-maps-out-forestations-dilemma/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/climate-or-biodiversity-global-study-maps-out-forestations-dilemma/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Mar 2026 02:45:37 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/05160753/5343928380_7661771c5f_o-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=315265</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Biodiversity Hotspots, Carbon Emissions, Climate Change, Conservation, Deforestation, Degraded Lands, Earth Science, Ecology, Ecosystems, Environment, Forest Carbon, Forestry, Forests, Fungi, Global Environmental Crisis, Global Warming, Green, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Landscape Restoration, Logging, Mitigation, National Parks, Oceans, Parks, Plants, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Research, Restoration, Saving Rainforests, Solutions, Threats To Rainforests, Timber, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Planting trees is a vital strategy to combat both climate change and the biodiversity crisis. As forests grow, they sponge carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and provide renewed habitat for threatened animals, plants, fungi and countless unseen lifeforms. That ability of forests to help slow climate change has driven a push to reforest degraded lands [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Planting trees is a vital strategy to combat both climate change and the biodiversity crisis. As forests grow, they sponge carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and provide renewed habitat for threatened animals, plants, fungi and countless unseen lifeforms. That ability of forests to help slow climate change has driven a push to reforest degraded lands or even plant new forests where none existed before. It’s also spurred other strategies, like the cultivation of bioenergy crops coupled with carbon capture. But these approaches require a lot of land, and they could potentially put pressure on the species that live in these spots — if a forestation project or hectares of bioenergy row crops subsume native grasslands, for example. A recent analysis shows that around 13% of globally important, biodiversity-rich land overlaps with areas earmarked for these types of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) projects. “It&#8217;s unfortunate that we face multiple global problems all at once, including both climate change and biodiversity loss,” said Mark Urban, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Connecticut in the U.S., who wasn’t involved in the research. “When we try to fix one, we can make things worse for the other.” Agroforestry in Ethiopia. Image by Trees ForTheFuture via Flickr (CC BY 2.0). The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, used five existing models that guide climate action in line with the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting warming to 1.5° Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels to map out locations tabbed&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/climate-or-biodiversity-global-study-maps-out-forestations-dilemma/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/climate-or-biodiversity-global-study-maps-out-forestations-dilemma/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-315265</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Mapping underground fungal networks: Interview with SPUN’s Toby Kiers</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/mapping-underground-fungal-networks-interview-with-spuns-toby-kiers/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/mapping-underground-fungal-networks-interview-with-spuns-toby-kiers/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Feb 2026 10:16:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhishyant Kidangoor]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sarahengel]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/10233608/Banner-Image-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=314068</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Central America, East Asia, Global, Latin America, Mongolia, and Panama]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Biodiversity Hotspots, carbon, Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Sequestration, Climate, Conservation, Ecosystems, Environment, Fungi, Interviews, Plants, Research, Soil Carbon, Symbiotic Relationships, Technology, and Water]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[All around her, scientists had their eyes set on studying flora and fauna that lived aboveground. But Toby Kiers’s interest always lay in the oft-overlooked biodiversity that existed beneath it. It was the mysterious nature of the vast mycorrhizal fungal networks that so fascinated Kiers. “It’s so alive, but humble and quiet,” Kiers, an evolutionary [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[All around her, scientists had their eyes set on studying flora and fauna that lived aboveground. But Toby Kiers’s interest always lay in the oft-overlooked biodiversity that existed beneath it. It was the mysterious nature of the vast mycorrhizal fungal networks that so fascinated Kiers. “It’s so alive, but humble and quiet,” Kiers, an evolutionary biologist and co-founder of the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), an organization that’s working to map mycorrhizal fungi around the world, told Mongabay in a video interview. Mycorrhizal fungi, found in almost every soil system on the planet, have a crucial symbiotic relationship with plants. They live on plant roots and extract nitrogen, phosphorus and water from the soil for the plants. The plants, in return, feed carbon dioxide absorbed during photosynthesis to the fungi, which need it for their growth. As a result, a massive amount of CO2 — more than 13 billion metric tons, according to a 2023 study — moves from plants to these fungal networks, making them a crucial tool in carbon sequestration. But there’s more to it than meets the eye. The movement of nutrients and carbon between plants and fungal networks is a calculated barter system in which the fungal networks allocate nutrients for plants based on how much they get in return. “We still don’t understand how they are doing it,” Kiers said. “It’s almost like watching the best poker players in the world play a game of poker.” To understand more about these complicated&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/mapping-underground-fungal-networks-interview-with-spuns-toby-kiers/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/mapping-underground-fungal-networks-interview-with-spuns-toby-kiers/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-314068</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Pesticides found in 70% of European soils, harming beneficial life: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/pesticides-found-in-70-of-european-soils-harming-beneficial-life-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/pesticides-found-in-70-of-european-soils-harming-beneficial-life-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Feb 2026 19:29:06 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/06190852/header-Plump_Springtail_iNat_105831052_-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=313903</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Agrochemicals, Chemicals, Environment, Fungi, Green, Insects, Pesticides, and Soil Carbon]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For farmers, sometimes the easiest way to save a crop or prevent catastrophic insect damage is to spray a pesticide. But this common practice is wreaking havoc on the soil, according to new research published recently in the journal Nature. The study examined soil from 26 European countries, finding that pesticide contamination is widespread beyond [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For farmers, sometimes the easiest way to save a crop or prevent catastrophic insect damage is to spray a pesticide. But this common practice is wreaking havoc on the soil, according to new research published recently in the journal Nature. The study examined soil from 26 European countries, finding that pesticide contamination is widespread beyond agricultural lands and substantially damages the beneficial soil organisms essential for healthy ecosystems. Researchers found pesticide residues in 70% of the 373 soil samples collected from agricultural fields, grasslands and forests. The contamination emerged as the second-strongest factor shaping soil biodiversity patterns, surpassed only by basic soil properties like texture and pH. &#8220;This contamination has a major impact on various beneficial soil organisms, such as mycorrhizal fungi and nematodes, impairing their biodiversity,&#8221; Marcel van der Heijden, a professor at the University of Zurich&#8217;s Department of Plant and Microbial Biology and one of the study&#8217;s lead authors, said in a statement. Mycorrhizal fungi form partnerships with the roots of plants and generally help plants obtain minerals and water from soil. Image by Wilhelm Zimmerling PAR via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Mycorrhizal fungi, which form partnerships with plant roots to help crops absorb water and nutrients, were among the organisms most affected by pesticide exposure. The fungicide bixafen, commonly used to combat harmful fungi on cereal crops, proved especially damaging to multiple types of soil organisms studied. The harmful effects of pesticides on birds, bees and other insects have been well documented. However, impacts on soil&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/pesticides-found-in-70-of-european-soils-harming-beneficial-life-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/pesticides-found-in-70-of-european-soils-harming-beneficial-life-study/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-313903</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Photos: Kew Gardens&#8217; top 10 newly named plants and fungi for 2025</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/photos-kew-gardens-top-10-newly-named-plants-and-fungi-for-2025/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/photos-kew-gardens-top-10-newly-named-plants-and-fungi-for-2025/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Jan 2026 23:24:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/12223115/02.-Telipogon-cruentilabrum-CREDIT-L.Baquero-03-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312879</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Botswana, Brazil, Ecuador, England, Namibia, Peru, and South Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Botany, Conservation, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Forest Destruction, Forests, Fungi, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, New Discovery, Plants, Rainforests, Species Discovery, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Over the past year, scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the U.K., officially named 125 plants and 65 fungi. The new-to-science species include a parasitic fungus that turns Brazilian spiders into “zombies,” a critically endangered orchid with blood-red markings from Ecuador&#8217;s cloud forests, and a shrub named after the fire demon from the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Over the past year, scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the U.K., officially named 125 plants and 65 fungi. The new-to-science species include a parasitic fungus that turns Brazilian spiders into “zombies,” a critically endangered orchid with blood-red markings from Ecuador&#8217;s cloud forests, and a shrub named after the fire demon from the 2004 Hayao Miyazaki film Howl&#8217;s Moving Castle. Each year, Kew releases a list of its “top 10” new plant and fungal species to showcase nature&#8217;s vast diversity, as well as its fragility, as many newly described species are already in danger. According to Kew’s “State of the World&#8217;s Plants and Fungi 2023” report, three out of four undescribed plants are threatened with extinction. One species described in 2025, Cryptacanthus ebo, a bromeliad from the Ebo Forest in Cameroon, may have already gone extinct. Each year, researchers worldwide officially name about 2,500 new plants and even more fungi. An estimated 100,000 plant species and between 2 million and 3 million fungal species remain to be described and named by science. Many of these unnamed fungi are endophytes that live entirely within plant tissues, making up the plants’ microbiomes. &#8220;Describing new plant and fungal species is essential at a time when the impacts of biodiversity loss and climate change accelerate before our eyes,&#8221; Martin Cheek, a senior research leader in Kew&#8217;s Africa team, said in a press release. &#8220;It is difficult to protect what we do not know, understand and have a scientific name for.&#8221; Although a species may be&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/photos-kew-gardens-top-10-newly-named-plants-and-fungi-for-2025/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/photos-kew-gardens-top-10-newly-named-plants-and-fungi-for-2025/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312879</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>An inventory of life in California</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/an-inventory-of-life-in-california/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/an-inventory-of-life-in-california/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Jan 2026 23:50:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/06234519/ca_huddart_park_180107197-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312680</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[California, North America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Citizen Science, Conservation, DNA, Ecology, Environment, Fungi, Green, Insects, Invertebrates, and Plants]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[&#160; Why Mongabay is reporting on California’s biodiversity Mongabay’s coverage of biodiversity has long been associated with tropical forests and far-flung frontiers. Yet California—wealthy, populous, and intensively studied—presents a different kind of challenge. It is one of the planet’s biodiversity hotspots, and yet much of its life remains undocumented, unnamed, and unaccounted for. That contradiction [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[&nbsp; Why Mongabay is reporting on California’s biodiversity Mongabay’s coverage of biodiversity has long been associated with tropical forests and far-flung frontiers. Yet California—wealthy, populous, and intensively studied—presents a different kind of challenge. It is one of the planet’s biodiversity hotspots, and yet much of its life remains undocumented, unnamed, and unaccounted for. That contradiction sits at the heart of the California All-Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (CalATBI), a statewide effort to catalogue life before it disappears. Over the past several months, Mongabay has reported on CalATBI and its partners as they attempt something unusually comprehensive: to build a verifiable, statewide baseline robust enough to support decades of future decisions. What follows draws on Mongabay’s reporting on insects, fungi, museum collections, and field science in California. It is not a catalogue of threats, nor a tour of charismatic species. It is a portrait of an infrastructure project—scientific, institutional, and human—designed to answer a basic question that turns out to be surprisingly hard to settle: what lives here? Discovering what still lives here &nbsp; California has never lacked for ambition. Its 20th-century infrastructure projects—like dams, aqueducts, and freeways—are known for their scale and confidence. CalATBI belongs to that lineage, though its raw material is not concrete or steel, but beetles, spores, DNA fragments, and pinned moths. The premise is straightforward. California cannot protect what it has not documented. Despite centuries of natural history, thousands of species remain undescribed, particularly among insects, fungi, and soil organisms. Many exist only as fleeting presences, active for&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/an-inventory-of-life-in-california/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/an-inventory-of-life-in-california/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312680</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Photos: Top new species from 2025</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/photos-top-new-species-from-2025/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/photos-top-new-species-from-2025/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Dec 2025 14:22:20 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/29141103/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-5.12.22-PM-1-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312133</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Andes, Angola, Atlantic Ocean, Brazil, Cerrado, Global, Himalayas, India, Peru, and Tanzania]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Acoustic, Amphibians, Animals, Biodiversity, Captive Breeding, Climate Change, Cloud Forests, Conservation, Deep Sea, Deforestation, DNA, Ecosystem Services, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Farming, Forests, Fungi, Habitat Loss, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Indigenous Peoples, Invasive Species, Marine, Mining, Oceans, Old Growth Forests, Pollution, Protected Areas, Ranching, Research, Science, Snakes, Species, Species Discovery, Swamps, Threatened species, Traditional Knowledge, Traditional People, Trees, Tropical Forests, and Water]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The world still holds its secrets. Hidden under wet rocks, in the ocean&#8217;s twilight crevices, and in the minutiae of the genetic code are creatures unknown and unnamed by the human species. Every year, scientists find hundreds of new animals, insects, plants and fungi. This year, researchers described a tiny new marsupial, a new Himalayan [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The world still holds its secrets. Hidden under wet rocks, in the ocean&#8217;s twilight crevices, and in the minutiae of the genetic code are creatures unknown and unnamed by the human species. Every year, scientists find hundreds of new animals, insects, plants and fungi. This year, researchers described a tiny new marsupial, a new Himalayan bat, an ancient tree, a bright blue butterfly, a parrot snake, and a fairy lantern plant, among others. &#8220;I think most people believe that we know most species on Earth,&#8221; Mario Moura, a professor at the Federal University of Paraíba in Brazil, told Mongabay, &#8220;but in the best-case scenario, we know 20% of Earth&#8217;s species.&#8221; Some estimate that only 10% of all the species on the planet have been described. Unfortunately, many species may be threatened with extinction before they’re even formally named — victims of human activities like development and climate change. Some of these species could be food or medicine for humans, but each plays a unique role in Earth’s interconnected web of life. “We’re understanding more and more that every species on the planet has a role, and in one way or another, is linked to our well-being through the part they play in ecosystems,&#8221; said Boris Worm, a marine conservation biologist who co-authored a study that quantifies the number of undescribed species on land and in the ocean. “We can’t protect them … if we don’t know them.&#8221; Atlantic manta ray (Mobula yarae) with a diver off the coast of Mexico. Originally&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/photos-top-new-species-from-2025/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/photos-top-new-species-from-2025/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312133</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Statewide survey aims to put California’s fungi on the conservation map</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/statewide-survey-aims-to-put-californias-fungi-on-the-conservation-map/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/statewide-survey-aims-to-put-californias-fungi-on-the-conservation-map/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Dec 2025 13:08:41 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/19121458/Image_2-LAPTOP-7JODAAGR-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311724</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[California, North America, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[carbon, Citizen Science, Climate, Climate Change, Conservation, data, DNA, Drought, Ecology, Ecosystems, Environment, Fires, Forests, Fungi, Nitrogen Cycle, Plants, Soil Carbon, Species, Species Discovery, Surveying, and Trees]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Getting to The Cedars, an ecological preserve in California’s Sonoma county, is a slog. Multiple rivers and creeks must be crossed, and it can be tough going on an often storm-destroyed road. But it’s home to a rich diversity of species found nowhere else on Earth that are uniquely adapted to serpentine soil, composed of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Getting to The Cedars, an ecological preserve in California’s Sonoma county, is a slog. Multiple rivers and creeks must be crossed, and it can be tough going on an often storm-destroyed road. But it’s home to a rich diversity of species found nowhere else on Earth that are uniquely adapted to serpentine soil, composed of decomposed rock and rich in heavy metals. If you’re a fungi collector, it’s well worth the trip. Over the past two years, a dedicated team of mycologists — specialists in the study of fungi — and experienced mushroom collectors have combed California’s forests, rivers and mountains in often remote locations such as this, searching for and collecting fungi. Those making the arduous journey out to The Cedars have identified more than 100 new species, 25 of which are only known from the area. They snapped photos, which were then uploaded with all pertinent data to iNaturalist, a citizen scientist biodiversity database. Collections have been sent to labs where scientists extracted DNA for sequencing. Dried specimens are stored for safe keeping at California State University, East Bay, and the University of California, Los Angeles. This is part of an expansive effort to map the state’s fungal diversity, which has yielded thousands of specimens and is the first of its kind in North America, says Harte Singer, who heads genetic research at the California Fungal Diversity Survey (CA FUNDIS). The CA FUNDIS team collected thousands of fungi species from across California. Many of those collected are undescribed.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/statewide-survey-aims-to-put-californias-fungi-on-the-conservation-map/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/statewide-survey-aims-to-put-californias-fungi-on-the-conservation-map/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311724</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Witch Hunt: Virulent fungal disease attacks South America’s cassava crop</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/witch-hunt-virulent-fungal-disease-attacks-south-americas-cassava-crop/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/witch-hunt-virulent-fungal-disease-attacks-south-americas-cassava-crop/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 Nov 2025 16:20:23 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gloria Dickie]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/04133603/0-Amazon64_lo_2_5658784964-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=308791</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Planetary Boundaries]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Asia, Brazil, French Guiana, Laos, Latin America, South America, Southeast Asia, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Climate, Climate Change, Commodity agriculture, Conservation, Crops, Diseases, Environment, Farming, Food, food security, Fungi, Indigenous Peoples, Rainforests, Subsistence Agriculture, and Traditional People]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[As smallholder farmers in French Guiana walked their fields in 2023, they noted a disturbing pattern. Their healthy cassava plants, once green and thriving, had begun to turn yellow. Leaves wilted, stalks withered, and small shoots looking like broomsticks sprouted from the plants. When they dug up their harvest, instead of unearthing large foot-long bunches [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[As smallholder farmers in French Guiana walked their fields in 2023, they noted a disturbing pattern. Their healthy cassava plants, once green and thriving, had begun to turn yellow. Leaves wilted, stalks withered, and small shoots looking like broomsticks sprouted from the plants. When they dug up their harvest, instead of unearthing large foot-long bunches of cassava, they found only stunted roots. The farmers reported the crisis to agricultural authorities, desperate to find a cure for their threatened crop. When international scientists arrived in 2024 to investigate the blight, they recognized their foe immediately. The witch had arrived in Latin America. Witches’ broom disease is a fungal pathogen, Ceratobasidium theobromae, that has been wreaking havoc on cassava crops in Southeast Asia for more than a decade, crippling yields and fueling economic hardship across that region. Plant scientists had hoped to contain the fungal pathogen to Asia. But since its arrival in South America in 2023, the disease — which attacks the plant’s vascular system — has spread into at least three Amazonian nations: It arrived first in French Guiana, is likely in Suriname, and is now sweeping through cassava production regions in the neighboring northern Brazilian state of Amapá, where it has decimated entire fields, and is also present in Pará state. Cooking cassava in Brazil. Cassava, also known as manioc and yuca, and for its tapioca flour, is native to South America, and an excellent source of carbohydrates. Image by Dennis G. Jarvis via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/witch-hunt-virulent-fungal-disease-attacks-south-americas-cassava-crop/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/witch-hunt-virulent-fungal-disease-attacks-south-americas-cassava-crop/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-308791</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Nepal’s hills, a fight brews over the country’s biggest iron deposit</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/in-nepals-hills-a-fight-brews-over-the-countrys-biggest-iron-deposit/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/in-nepals-hills-a-fight-brews-over-the-countrys-biggest-iron-deposit/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Oct 2025 08:36:28 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sonam Lama Hyolmo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/10/16140316/7-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=307814</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Biodiversity Hotspots, Chemicals, Community Forests, Conservation, Culture, Development, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Fungi, Green, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Infrastructure, Land Rights, Medicinal Plants, Medicine, Mining, Pollution, Social Justice, and Water Pollution]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — When the monsoon arrives in Jhumlabang village in Nepal’s far west, 35-year-old Til Kumari B.K. spends hours in the community forest harvesting mushrooms. The rest of the year, she goes there to collect bark from the allo plant (Girardinia diversifolia), or Himalayan nettle, which is processed into a fiber for weaving fabric. During [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — When the monsoon arrives in Jhumlabang village in Nepal’s far west, 35-year-old Til Kumari B.K. spends hours in the community forest harvesting mushrooms. The rest of the year, she goes there to collect bark from the allo plant (Girardinia diversifolia), or Himalayan nettle, which is processed into a fiber for weaving fabric. During the dry season, Til Kumari also tends her farm. “The farm feeds my family, while money from the mushrooms and fibers help pay for books and pens for my four children,” she says. But all that could soon change, with her once sleepy village now in the headlines as home to Nepal’s “biggest iron deposit.” The area, which once provided copper ores for community use, now sits on a potential iron deposit. There’s no full-scale mining operation here, for now. But officials have recently granted a concession, and community members are crying foul over what they say is the lack of meaningful community consultation, threats of displacement, and potential environmental harm even — as the government and mining companies emphasize economic development and resource self-sufficiency. Government and company sources told Mongabay that Jhumlabang mine which contain a hematite deposit of around 200 million tonnes is twice as big as Dhaubadi iron mine that has an estimated 96.3 million metric tons of iron ores and that the new mine has the capacity to create job opportunities and reduce dependency on iron imports from neighboring countries. But first it would have to overcome stern opposition from locals,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/in-nepals-hills-a-fight-brews-over-the-countrys-biggest-iron-deposit/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/in-nepals-hills-a-fight-brews-over-the-countrys-biggest-iron-deposit/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-307814</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Uphill battle to save California’s endangered mountain yellow-legged frog</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/uphill-battle-to-save-californias-endangered-mountain-yellow-legged-frog/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/uphill-battle-to-save-californias-endangered-mountain-yellow-legged-frog/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Oct 2025 16:32:44 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/10/10094533/Image_6-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=307350</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[California, North America, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amphibians, Animals, Climate, Climate Change, Conservation, Drought, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Fires, Frogs, Fungi, Habitat Degradation, Lakes, Pollution, Reintroductions, Saving Species From Extinction, Solutions, Trees, Water, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Earlier this year, 350 endangered mountain yellow-legged frogs hopped into their new home in Bluff Lake in Southern California’s San Bernardino Mountains. It’s the latest step in a long-running battle fought by authorities, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and conservationists to stave [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Earlier this year, 350 endangered mountain yellow-legged frogs hopped into their new home in Bluff Lake in Southern California’s San Bernardino Mountains. It’s the latest step in a long-running battle fought by authorities, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and conservationists to stave off extinction of this highly threatened species. The mountain yellow-legged frog (Rana muscosa), despite its name, can display a wide array of color variations, often a mix of brown and yellow, but also gray, red, or greenish-brown. There are two distinct populations of this medium-sized frog: one in Southern California and another up north in the Sierra Nevada. An endangered mountain yellow-legged frog leaps into its new home after being released into the lake. This release, a collaboration between Birch Aquarium, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, UCLA and Big Bear Alpine Zoo, is part of a long-running reintroduction program that began in 2010. Image courtesy of Birch Aquarium at Scripps/Alex Feltes. Biologists say this frog was once so common you couldn’t walk through its range without tripping on one. That’s far from the case today in Southern California. The last comprehensive surveys carried out in 2023 counted fewer than 200 adults in the wild. Though exact numbers are unclear, conservationists say the northern population is much more robust. The southern reintroductions began in 2010 in the San Jacinto Mountains. This year’s release is part of what Sean Bruce, assistant curator of fishes and invertebrates at&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/uphill-battle-to-save-californias-endangered-mountain-yellow-legged-frog/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/uphill-battle-to-save-californias-endangered-mountain-yellow-legged-frog/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-307350</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Global maps reveal where mycorrhizal fungi thrive — and where they’re unprotected</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/global-maps-reveal-where-mycorrhizal-fungi-thrive-and-where-theyre-unprotected/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/global-maps-reveal-where-mycorrhizal-fungi-thrive-and-where-theyre-unprotected/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 Aug 2025 16:47:35 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/08/04165307/MS-01.-Credit-Mateo-Barrenengoa-The-mycorrhizal-mushroom-Cortinarius-albomagellanicus-emerges-from-a-hyper-diverse-but-hidden-underground-fungal-community-in-Tierra-de-Fuego-Chile-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=303702</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Ethiopia, Global, Tasmania, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Environment, Forests, Fungi, Green, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[With nearly every step, we move above a vast underground network of fungal filaments, an ancient communication system that predates human civilization by hundreds of millions of years. Now, scientists have created the first comprehensive maps of these hidden networks. These maps, published in a new study in Nature, represent a four-year effort by the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[With nearly every step, we move above a vast underground network of fungal filaments, an ancient communication system that predates human civilization by hundreds of millions of years. Now, scientists have created the first comprehensive maps of these hidden networks. These maps, published in a new study in Nature, represent a four-year effort by the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) to understand where mycorrhizal fungi are most diverse across the globe. The findings reveal that less than 10% of mycorrhizal fungi biodiversity hotspots fall within existing protected areas, leaving vast underground ecosystems vulnerable to destruction from agriculture and development. &#8220;For centuries, we&#8217;ve mapped mountains, forests, and oceans. But these fungi have remained in the dark, despite the extraordinary ways they sustain life on land,&#8221; Toby Kiers, SPUN&#8217;s executive director and co-author of the paper, said in a statement. &#8220;They cycle nutrients, store carbon, support plant health, and make soil. When we disrupt these critical ecosystem engineers, forest regeneration slows, crops fail, and biodiversity aboveground begins to unravel.&#8221; Map from SPUN’s Underground Atlas showing predicted arbuscular mycorrhizal biodiversity patterns across underground ecosystems. Bright colors indicate higher richness and endemism. Image courtesy of SPUN. Mycorrhizal fungi form symbiotic partnerships with more than 80% of plant species, creating extensive underground networks that transport nutrients and water. These fungal webs can make up to a third of the living mass in the soil, forming what scientists describe as the &#8220;wood wide web,&#8221; allowing plants to share resources and communicate environmental threats&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/global-maps-reveal-where-mycorrhizal-fungi-thrive-and-where-theyre-unprotected/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/global-maps-reveal-where-mycorrhizal-fungi-thrive-and-where-theyre-unprotected/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-303702</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Tropical forest roots show strain as changes aboveground filter below</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/tropical-forest-roots-show-strain-as-changes-aboveground-filter-below/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/tropical-forest-roots-show-strain-as-changes-aboveground-filter-below/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Jul 2025 16:59:44 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Petro Kotzé]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/07/15090836/1-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=302479</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Central America, Costa Rica, Global, Latin America, Panama, Puerto Rico, and Singapore]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, carbon, Carbon Sequestration, Climate Change, Conservation, data, Deforestation, Drought, Ecosystems, El Nino, Environment, forest degradation, Forests, Fungi, Plants, Precipitation, Rainforests, Research, Symbiotic Relationships, Trees, Tropical Forests, and Water]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The destruction of tropical rainforests — seen in shocking images of huge wildfires, vast clear-cuts and dying drought-stressed trees — is unfolding annually before the world&#8217;s eyes. But some serious changes in growing forests are occurring unseen, below the surface. As aboveground changes in those forests intensify, those effects are also filtering underground, and researchers [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The destruction of tropical rainforests — seen in shocking images of huge wildfires, vast clear-cuts and dying drought-stressed trees — is unfolding annually before the world&#8217;s eyes. But some serious changes in growing forests are occurring unseen, below the surface. As aboveground changes in those forests intensify, those effects are also filtering underground, and researchers are sounding the alarm due to potentially adverse changes to tropical forest roots. Roots are key to how rainforest trees and soils capture and store atmospheric carbon dioxide, especially as climate change progresses, says Daniela F. Cusack, associate professor in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability at Colorado State University. The hidden world of plant roots, and the impacts of human-caused stressors on them, is not yet well understood, but important clues are emerging. An overlooked science While underground plant growth is more difficult to study than what’s happening aboveground, roots are no less important than forest floor to canopy processes, explains Cusack, who is also a research associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Scientists began looking at the complex tropical forest underworld about 40 years ago. Today, they know tropical tree species’ roots grow in a mat on the forest floor to collect nutrients from composting vegetative matter. Some trees have shallow root systems that run for more than 100 meters (325 feet) to steady the tall trees, especially since strong winds often rock the canopy. Others have evolved large, thin extensions of the trunk that begin some 6 m (20 ft)&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/tropical-forest-roots-show-strain-as-changes-aboveground-filter-below/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/tropical-forest-roots-show-strain-as-changes-aboveground-filter-below/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-302479</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>A century later, a rare mushroom with a curious shape emerges in Sri Lanka</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/a-century-later-a-rare-mushroom-with-a-curious-shape-emerges-in-sri-lanka/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/a-century-later-a-rare-mushroom-with-a-curious-shape-emerges-in-sri-lanka/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Mar 2025 04:01:22 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Malaka Rodrigo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Dilrukshi Handunnetti]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/03/26034603/0-The-mushroom-c-Sajeewa-Wijeweera-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=296473</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, South Asia, and Sri Lanka]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Citizen Science, Conservation, Ecology, Endangered Species, Environment, Fungi, Rediscovered Species, Research, and Species]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[COLOMBO — In July 2023, heavy rains continued in southern Sri Lanka for days, soaking the lush greenery of the village of Hapugala in Galle. Amid the downpour, journalist and naturalist Sajeewa Wijeweera received an unexpected call — not from the wild, but from just across his garden. His wife, Sirangika Lokukaravita, had spotted something [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[COLOMBO — In July 2023, heavy rains continued in southern Sri Lanka for days, soaking the lush greenery of the village of Hapugala in Galle. Amid the downpour, journalist and naturalist Sajeewa Wijeweera received an unexpected call — not from the wild, but from just across his garden. His wife, Sirangika Lokukaravita, had spotted something strange emerging from the wet soil: a vivid red mushroom with a bulbous base, bizarre and eye-catching in form. Experienced in nature observation, Wijeweera suspected this wasn’t just another garden fungus. He turned to plant identification apps, but it was not possible to identify the mushroom. Intrigued, he sent the images to a network of botanists, hoping for a clue. The mushroom is about 15 centimeters (6 inches) long. Image courtesy of Sajeewa Wijeweera. One of the first to respond was Bhathiya Gopallawa, a doctoral researcher at the University of Peradeniya. “This looks like a mushroom not recorded from Sri Lanka before,” he said — a comment that turned casual curiosity into scientific excitement. After digging through mycological records, the team identified the specimen as Mutinus bambusinus, a rare stinkhorn mushroom that hadn’t been documented in Sri Lanka in more than a century. The only known record dated back to 1919, when it was found growing in decomposing bamboo debris. While the species is known from other tropical regions, its reappearance in Sri Lanka, especially outside a bamboo grove, was remarkable. “There were no bamboos in that area for as long as I can remember,”&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/a-century-later-a-rare-mushroom-with-a-curious-shape-emerges-in-sri-lanka/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/a-century-later-a-rare-mushroom-with-a-curious-shape-emerges-in-sri-lanka/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-296473</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Startups replace plastics with mushrooms in the seafood industry</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/startups-replace-plastics-with-mushrooms-in-the-seafood-industry/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/startups-replace-plastics-with-mushrooms-in-the-seafood-industry/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Oct 2024 08:00:54 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Claire Turrell]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/10/28151745/end-of-buoy-life-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=289274</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Aquaculture, Business, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Conservation Technology, Environment, Fisheries, Fishing, Food Industry, Forest Regeneration, Fungi, Global Environmental Crisis, Natural Resources, Oceans, Plastic, Pollution, Research, Solutions, Waste, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Mycologists believe the solution to some of our biggest pollution issues is under our feet. Humble fungi are now being used as meat alternatives, eco-friendly leather and to help break down waste such as plastics. While a new industry, the market for mycelium, the root-like structure of fungi, is forecast to reach $6.5 billion by [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Mycologists believe the solution to some of our biggest pollution issues is under our feet. Humble fungi are now being used as meat alternatives, eco-friendly leather and to help break down waste such as plastics. While a new industry, the market for mycelium, the root-like structure of fungi, is forecast to reach $6.5 billion by 2032. Now nascent startups are using it to help curb pollution from the seafood industry. The solutions created by these startups are timely. South Korea has banned marine buoys made with Styrofoam from 2025, and MPs in Canada are calling for a similar ban. The European Union has stated that in 2025, manufacturers will be responsible for the end life of fishing gear. And the United Nations is expected to release a global treaty to curb plastic pollution by the end of 2024, adding more pressure. Plastic foam can break down into microplastics, which marine wildlife commonly mistake for food to the detriment of their health. Research shows seafood consumption is one way humans can be exposed to microplastics. Fishing gear accounts for a major portion of the plastic polluting the ocean: 10% globally, but up to 100% in certain places, according to a recent overview study. In 2022, mycologist Sue Van Hook launched MycoBuoys in Maine, U.S., a startup aiming to reduce the sea’s plastic burden by turning mushrooms into buoys for the aquaculture industry. Van Hook discovered that mycelia could float while at New York-state based Ecovative, one of the biggest innovators in&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/startups-replace-plastics-with-mushrooms-in-the-seafood-industry/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/startups-replace-plastics-with-mushrooms-in-the-seafood-industry/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-289274</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>To save endangered trees, researchers in South America recruit an army of fungi</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/to-save-endangered-trees-researchers-in-south-america-recruit-an-army-of-fungi/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/to-save-endangered-trees-researchers-in-south-america-recruit-an-army-of-fungi/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Sep 2024 12:04:44 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sofia Moutinho]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/09/12114443/018A9280-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=287338</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Colombia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Deforestation, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Forest Loss, Forest Regeneration, Forests, Fungi, Plants, Protected Areas, Research, Restoration, Solutions, Symbiotic Relationships, Trees, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[It’s a sunny July day during an otherwise exceptionally rainy season in the lush green mountains of Huila, in Colombia’s eastern Andes. Adriana Corrales, her assistant and a local guide climb through the dense cloud forest. Above them, birds sing and monkeys howl through the canopy of ancient Colombian black oaks (Trigonobalanus excelsa), an endangered [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[It’s a sunny July day during an otherwise exceptionally rainy season in the lush green mountains of Huila, in Colombia’s eastern Andes. Adriana Corrales, her assistant and a local guide climb through the dense cloud forest. Above them, birds sing and monkeys howl through the canopy of ancient Colombian black oaks (Trigonobalanus excelsa), an endangered tree species. But the researchers keep their eyes on the ground. “All this forest above us, and we are here looking down,” says Corrales, a fungi ecologist and expedition leader at the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), a nonprofit research organization mapping fungi worldwide. For the last two years, the group has been searching in Colombia’s black oak forests for mycorrhizae, a type of fungi that establishes a unique symbiosis with plants that’s fundamental to keeping forests alive. Most plants worldwide are associated with these fungi. Mycorrhizae grow around roots, forming vast networks of thin, cotton-like filaments that extend into the lower soil levels and reach the litter fall. Through this system, the fungi can break down organic matter, such as dry leaves, and even mine minerals in rocks and deliver water and essential nutrients directly to plants’ roots. In return, the roots provide the fungi with sugars, essential for their survival. The high-altitude cloud forests of Huila, cut down to open space for coffee farms, used to be covered by black oak trees. Image by Sofia Moutinho for Mongabay. “The fungi form a microbiome on the plant&#8217;s roots in the same&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/to-save-endangered-trees-researchers-in-south-america-recruit-an-army-of-fungi/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-287338</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Drone cameras help scientists distinguish between drought stress &#038; fungus in oaks</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/drone-cameras-help-scientists-distinguish-between-drought-stress-fungus-in-oaks/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/drone-cameras-help-scientists-distinguish-between-drought-stress-fungus-in-oaks/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Apr 2024 11:53:01 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhishyant Kidangoor]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhishyantkidangoor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/04/18114433/mike-erskine-dtvDF6WXCCQ-unsplash-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=281070</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[North America and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Diseases, Drones, Drought, Fungi, Research, Technology, Trees, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[How do you identify sick oaks? For a long time, detecting unhealthy oaks and identifying the disease afflicting them required a lot of manual labor. Scientists often looked out of airplanes or walked through forests in a bid to detect and find visible symptoms. Even then, one couldn’t really be sure. New research attempts to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[How do you identify sick oaks? For a long time, detecting unhealthy oaks and identifying the disease afflicting them required a lot of manual labor. Scientists often looked out of airplanes or walked through forests in a bid to detect and find visible symptoms. Even then, one couldn’t really be sure. New research attempts to find a solution to this long-standing problem. A study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) describes how a team of scientists used remote sensing, spectroscopy and machine learning to not only identify unhealthy oaks before visual symptoms appeared, but to also distinguish between drought stress and oak wilt, a deadly fungal disease. The team monitored sick trees and, as symptoms progressed, observed physiological changes in them while also keeping an eye on how they reflected light. Once the researchers established a link between the two, they used the data to train a machine learning model that can now tell if an oak is sick, and if it suffers from drought stress or oak wilt. “We obtained spectroscopic information in many wavelengths from light reflected from plants,” Jeannine Cavender-Bares, a co-author of the study and Distinguished McKnight University Professor of ecology, evolution and behavior at the University of Minnesota, told Mongabay in a video interview. “When we do this, we get a spectral fingerprint of the plant, which allows us to detect disease when we couple it with machine learning models.” Scientists have developed a machine learning model that can&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/drone-cameras-help-scientists-distinguish-between-drought-stress-fungus-in-oaks/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-281070</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Traditional healers push for recognition and licensing of age-old Himalayan practice</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/traditional-healers-push-for-recognition-and-licensing-of-age-old-himalayan-practice/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/traditional-healers-push-for-recognition-and-licensing-of-age-old-himalayan-practice/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 Dec 2023 16:23:51 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sonam Lama Hyolmo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/12/05155131/16004709352_8d98d2de17_k-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=276291</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples and Conservation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Botany, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Culture, Endangered Species, Environment, Fungi, Indigenous Peoples, Medicinal Plants, Medicine, Plants, Religions, Research, Traditional Knowledge, Traditional Medicine, and Traditional People]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — In the isolated kingdom of Lo Manthang, tucked away in Nepal’s Himalayas, ancient structures stand tall on arid lands that only allowed tourists in from the late 1990s. Amid a small settlement of Loba Buddhists whose children have now migrated out, 65-year-old Gyatso Bista is trying preserve the ancient Tibetan medicinal system of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — In the isolated kingdom of Lo Manthang, tucked away in Nepal’s Himalayas, ancient structures stand tall on arid lands that only allowed tourists in from the late 1990s. Amid a small settlement of Loba Buddhists whose children have now migrated out, 65-year-old Gyatso Bista is trying preserve the ancient Tibetan medicinal system of Sowa Rigpa, also known as the science of healing. This traditional knowledge and practice, relying on both scholarly and religious texts, has been used in highland Asian communities for more than 2,500 years. Throughout the millennia, healers gathered, observed and tested a vast array of local endemic species, varieties of plants, fungi and lichens and dozens of minerals, working them into formulas with the hope, and satisfaction, that they could treat certain physical and mental illnesses. The right quantity of herb ingredients is the key to the medicinal formula, Bista says. Myrobalan (Terminalia chebula), baheda (Terminalia bellirica) and amala (Phyllanthus emblica), which all have a sour taste, are considered the king of herbs and are common ingredients used among hundreds. Plant and pharmacognosy studies also attest to their healing, therapeutic and cardioprotective benefits, as well as the herbal properties of other plants, fungi and minerals that healers have documented in their pharmaceutical system. “Healers are trained to not only recognize herb potency and healing benefits but also to put together the required quantity of ingredients to develop a medicine,” Bista says. Although this knowledge dates back to before the first millenium, it is gradually disappearing&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/traditional-healers-push-for-recognition-and-licensing-of-age-old-himalayan-practice/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/traditional-healers-push-for-recognition-and-licensing-of-age-old-himalayan-practice/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-276291</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Gone before we know them? Kew&#8217;s &#8216;State of the World&#8217;s Plants and Fungi&#8217; report warns of extinctions</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/gone-before-we-know-them-kews-state-of-the-worlds-plants-and-fungi-report-warns-of-extinctions/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/gone-before-we-know-them-kews-state-of-the-worlds-plants-and-fungi-report-warns-of-extinctions/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Oct 2023 21:58:19 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/12/17134939/mushrooms-g388832c6d_1920-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=274162</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Botany, Climate Change, Conservation, Conservation Philosophy, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Forests, Fungi, Global Environmental Crisis, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, New Discovery, Plants, Rainforests, Research, and Species Discovery]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A new report from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew) warns that Earth&#8217;s vast numbers of plant and fungal species are threatened with extinction, and many may meet that fate before science ever describes them. The “State of the World’s Plants and Fungi” report draws on research from 200 scientists across 30 countries. A [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A new report from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew) warns that Earth&#8217;s vast numbers of plant and fungal species are threatened with extinction, and many may meet that fate before science ever describes them. The “State of the World’s Plants and Fungi” report draws on research from 200 scientists across 30 countries. A keystone of the report is the newly compiled World Checklist of Vascular Plants, led by Kew’s Rafaël Govaerts. The checklist, 35 years in the making, represents the first complete catalog of the 350,386 known plant species and their global ranges — a landmark accomplishment described as “the vital first step in documenting life on Earth.” The report includes concerning findings for plants. Researchers used predictive models to forecast extinction risks across nearly 400,000 documented flowering plants for the first time. They estimate that 45% of these are potentially threatened with extinction, with islands like Hawaii, Madagascar, New Caledonia, Borneo and the Philippines serving as predicted extinction hotspots. Scientists have described 100,000 species of plants and fungi since the start of 2020. However, researchers estimate we have yet to find 15% of the world’s flora. Researchers state this pace is far too slow to document all of these species before extinction. The last known remaining Abutilon pitcairnense was destroyed by a landslide on Pitcairn Island in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is now considered extinct. Photo by Marcella Corcoran. Of the estimated 300,000 plants that remain undiscovered, 77% of those may go extinct before discovery, according to a&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/gone-before-we-know-them-kews-state-of-the-worlds-plants-and-fungi-report-warns-of-extinctions/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/gone-before-we-know-them-kews-state-of-the-worlds-plants-and-fungi-report-warns-of-extinctions/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-274162</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Machine learning helps researchers identify underground fungal networks</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/08/machine-learning-helps-researchers-identify-underground-fungal-networks/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/08/machine-learning-helps-researchers-identify-underground-fungal-networks/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 Aug 2023 10:34:16 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhishyant Kidangoor]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhishyantkidangoor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/08/04102209/larch-bolete-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=271806</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Artificial Intelligence, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Ecosystem Engineers, Ecosystems, Environment, Fungi, Science, Soil Carbon, Symbiotic Relationships, Technology, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Justin Stewart left for Mount Chimborazo in August 2022 to collect fungal samples from the Ecuadoran volcano at an elevation of 4,000 meters, or about 13,000 feet. Given that vegetation would be sparse at that altitude, Stewart says he didn’t expect to find enough plant roots underground that would support mycorrhizal fungi, the species he [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Justin Stewart left for Mount Chimborazo in August 2022 to collect fungal samples from the Ecuadoran volcano at an elevation of 4,000 meters, or about 13,000 feet. Given that vegetation would be sparse at that altitude, Stewart says he didn’t expect to find enough plant roots underground that would support mycorrhizal fungi, the species he had set out to sample. Once up there, Stewart and his team started digging holes to collect samples. But much to their surprise, he later said, it was filled with roots and plant systems. During lab analysis later, they identified 12 species of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi — the essential interface that facilitates the transfer of water and nutrients from soil to plants via the root system. “This is an area where we had predicted high biodiversity,” Stewart told Mongabay in a video interview. “To see that there are actual root systems there, and fungi, was so exciting.” The predictions, based on which Stewart organized the trip, were made by a machine-learning algorithm. Using satellite data from locations known to have high density of the fungi population, Stewart and his colleagues trained models to predict regions around the world that are biodiversity hotspots for mycorrhizal fungi. Then, the team would make their way to those locations to collect samples for DNA analysis to corroborate the model’s findings. The Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), where Stewart is an ecological data scientist, is an initiative that’s working to map the presence of mycorrhizal fungi around&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/08/machine-learning-helps-researchers-identify-underground-fungal-networks/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-271806</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Sri Lanka researchers amp up mushroom studies and find new species</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/sri-lanka-researchers-amp-up-mushroom-studies-and-find-new-species/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/sri-lanka-researchers-amp-up-mushroom-studies-and-find-new-species/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 May 2023 15:17:35 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Malaka Rodrigo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Dilrukshi Handunnetti]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/05/27145746/Cookeina-tricholoma-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=269120</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, South Asia, and Sri Lanka]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Environment, Fungi, and Research]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[COLOMBO — In Lewis Carroll’s popular children’s book “Alice in Wonderland,” Alice finds a magical mushroom that could make her bigger or smaller. There are many references to wild mushrooms in many a fairytale, and these beautiful organisms have often been associated with magic. However, some recent discoveries of mushrooms in Sri Lanka were not [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[COLOMBO — In Lewis Carroll’s popular children’s book “Alice in Wonderland,” Alice finds a magical mushroom that could make her bigger or smaller. There are many references to wild mushrooms in many a fairytale, and these beautiful organisms have often been associated with magic. However, some recent discoveries of mushrooms in Sri Lanka were not the outcome of magic but the result of scientists at work. Being open to working with amateurs who have an interest in mushrooms can also result in chance encounters. For example, a retired dentist from Kegalle in Sri Lanka’s Sabaragamuwa province, Hemachandra Kularatne is passionate about nature photography and has developed a special interest in wild mushrooms. On occasion, he camps out in the remote wilderness to photograph unusual looking mushrooms. In 2020, he found one that looked a little similar but different to a mushroom he had in his own home garden. This mushroom’s stem was thinner than the edible mushroom’s, so Kularatne shared its photos with Aseni Ediriweera, a scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which studies mushrooms. By analyzing the DNA, Ediriweera determined it is a species new to science and named it Termitomyces srilankensis. Like Kularatne, Gunadasa Pathirana, a tour guide at the Kanneliya Rainforest Reserve in the island’s south, is another amateur who is moved by the diversity of mushrooms he sees. Whenever he shoots a mushroom whose name he does not know, he forwards it to mushroom researchers for verification. It is from such a sample that Ediriweera&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/sri-lanka-researchers-amp-up-mushroom-studies-and-find-new-species/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-269120</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘During droughts, pivot to agroecology’: Q&#038;A with soil expert at the World Agroforestry Centre</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/during-droughts-pivot-to-agroecology-qa-with-soil-expert-at-the-world-agroforestry-centre/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/during-droughts-pivot-to-agroecology-qa-with-soil-expert-at-the-world-agroforestry-centre/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Feb 2023 20:17:17 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Kang-Chun Cheng]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/02/28185158/IMG_4644-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=266030</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Covering Climate Now]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Kenya]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation, Agriculture, Agroecology, Agroforestry, Bacteria, Climate, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Crops, Degraded Lands, Drought, Environment, Farming, Food, food security, Fungi, Global Environmental Crisis, Mongabay Data Studio, Poverty, Soil Carbon, Subsistence Agriculture, Trees, Water, and Water Scarcity]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[This interview was produced with the funding support of the Pulitzer Center. WESTERN TURKANA, Kenya—Driving across Northern Kenya’s Turkana County, the seemingly boundless terrain of sand dunes, dusty brushes and hard, dry soil makes it hard to imagine anyone could farm and eke a living out here. As Kenya and the Horn of Africa are [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This interview was produced with the funding support of the Pulitzer Center. WESTERN TURKANA, Kenya—Driving across Northern Kenya’s Turkana County, the seemingly boundless terrain of sand dunes, dusty brushes and hard, dry soil makes it hard to imagine anyone could farm and eke a living out here. As Kenya and the Horn of Africa are confronted by the fifth consecutive failed rainy season since September 2020—the region’s worst drought in four decades—around 22 million people (roughly the population of Taiwan or Sri Lanka) are food insecure, says a U.N. World Food Programme report released last month. In Kenya, the number stands at 4.4 million as of December 2022, with children needing acute treatment for malnutrition on the rise. The numbers and immense toll on pastoralists and agro-pastoralists, who rely on both crops and livestock, grow starker still: their animals have been dying en masse with, 2.5 million livestock deaths recorded by the Government of Kenya, and entire communities pushed to pursue different livelihoods as traditional means and resources fail. Patricia Nying’uro, a climate scientist at the Kenya Meteorological Department, says that although there are several causes of the ongoing drought, negative La Niña conditions are a significant contributing factor. This periodic cooling of sea-surface temperatures over the Pacific Ocean, the meteorologist tells Mongabay, leads to certain negative indices, such as prolonged drought. A Turkana man walking through the sand dunes at Eliye Springs, on the western shores of Lake Turkana. Image by Kang-Chun Cheng. A U.N. report has confirmed that&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/during-droughts-pivot-to-agroecology-qa-with-soil-expert-at-the-world-agroforestry-centre/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/during-droughts-pivot-to-agroecology-qa-with-soil-expert-at-the-world-agroforestry-centre/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-266030</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Kew Gardens joins local partners to save tropical plants from extinction</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/kew-gardens-joins-local-partners-to-save-tropical-plants-from-extinction/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/kew-gardens-joins-local-partners-to-save-tropical-plants-from-extinction/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Feb 2023 14:53:23 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sue Branford]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/02/13120131/kew-garden-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=265518</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Cameroon, England, Ethiopia, Global, Guinea, Mozambique, Tropics, and United Kingdom]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Botany, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Forestry, Forests, Fungi, Global Environmental Crisis, Mass Extinction, Plants, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Research, Saving Species From Extinction, Solutions, Species Discovery, Trees, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A worldwide international collaboration is locating tropical areas with high concentrations of plants not yet identified by science, then working with local communities to conserve those plants and their habitats.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KEW GARDENS, U.K. — There have been five known mass extinctions in Earth’s history. Today, most scientists agree we are in the midst of the sixth. “Species are going extinct at an unprecedented rate,” attests Meryl Westlake, senior digital content manager at Britain’s Kew Gardens, “with some estimates that we are [now] losing 135 plants, animals and insects every day, compared with the baseline extinction rate — the rate … before humans had a big impact on the planet — of 1-5 species every year.” Humankind, being the driving force behind this rapidly escalating extinction crisis, may have a chance of halting it, or at least slowing it down, at least in theory and hopefully in practice. Which is where the U.K.’s Royal Botanic Gardens, popularly known as Kew Gardens, enters the picture. While the London-based internationally renowned botanical research institute is best known for its vast collection of tropical plants kept under glass against the U.K’s harsh climate since 1840, today its researchers are working with partners around the globe in a race to slow the pace of extinction. Mongabay went to London at the start of 2023 to see how the effort is progressing. Saxicolella deniseae is a member of the Saxicolella genus, a group of plants highly adapted to survive in very specific whitewater environment, with some species only encountered at a single waterfall. In 2022, scientists identified several new species within this genus, including S. deniseae on the Konkouré River in Guinea. Dams need to have solid&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/kew-gardens-joins-local-partners-to-save-tropical-plants-from-extinction/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/kew-gardens-joins-local-partners-to-save-tropical-plants-from-extinction/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-265518</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Restore linked habitat to protect tropical amphibians from disease: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/restore-linked-habitat-to-protect-tropical-amphibians-from-disease-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/restore-linked-habitat-to-protect-tropical-amphibians-from-disease-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Feb 2023 17:07:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/02/08151410/1-Aplastodiscus-leucopygius-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=265354</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Atlantic Forest, Brazil, Global, and Tropics]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amphibians, Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Diseases, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Freshwater, Frogs, Fungi, Global Environmental Crisis, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Herps, Microorganisms, Research, Restoration, Tropical Forests, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[New research suggests travel between increasingly separated terrestrial and aquatic habitats may impact tropical amphibian microbiomes and immunity, leading to more disease, though more research is needed.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[As a precipitous global biodiversity decline escalates, forests across the tropics are increasingly becoming fragmented. This fragmentation can lead to multiple problems, including a process known as “habitat split” that could have consequences for disease among amphibians, according to a recently published study in the journal Biological Reviews. Habitat split occurs when multiple “classes” of habitat — such as forests, streams and ponds — that are important to some amphibian species’ life cycles are separated, Gui Becker, first author on the paper and a biologist with Pennsylvania State University, told Mongabay in an interview. In earlier work, Becker and colleagues concluded that habitat split was a driving force behind local extinctions of amphibians in South America’s highly fragmented Atlantic Forest. However, a link between habitat split and the role of disease, had not then been considered. Of particular concern when it comes to amphibian disease is the chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, which is linked to population declines in Brazil and to amphibian species losses across the globe. Also known as Bd, this fungus can cause the potentially fatal disease chytridiomycosis, with scientists already knowing prior to this research that habitat fragmentation can increase the risk of Bd infections among amphibians. A forest fragment in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. Habitat split can occur when different “classes” of habitat, such as terrestrial and freshwater areas, are separated. In such cases, amphibian species that require water habitat as part of their life cycle must traverse altered habitat. In doing so, it is believed they&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/restore-linked-habitat-to-protect-tropical-amphibians-from-disease-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-265354</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Mycorrhizal fungi, nature’s ‘wood wide web,’ get a $3m conservation boost</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/mycorrhizal-fungi-natures-wood-wide-web-get-a-3m-conservation-boost/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/mycorrhizal-fungi-natures-wood-wide-web-get-a-3m-conservation-boost/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Nov 2022 18:31:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/11/11181719/mycorrhizae-on-pine_JonSullivan_Flikr-1-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=262572</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Climate Change, Forests, Fungi, Research, and Soil Carbon]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Beneath our feet, a vast network of fungus spreads like a web. Mycorrhizal fungi connect the roots of plants to the surrounding soil, facilitating the exchange of water and nutrients for sugars from the sun and playing a vital role in the health of terrestrial ecosystems. Now, this “wood wide web” is getting a conservation [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Beneath our feet, a vast network of fungus spreads like a web. Mycorrhizal fungi connect the roots of plants to the surrounding soil, facilitating the exchange of water and nutrients for sugars from the sun and playing a vital role in the health of terrestrial ecosystems. Now, this “wood wide web” is getting a conservation boost. The Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), a scientific initiative focused on mapping and conserving mycorrhizal networks, has announced it’s received a $3 million general operating grant from the Schmidt Family Foundation. “Without fungi, there would be no life on Earth. But climate change is putting fungal systems — and with them all our ecosystems, not to mention the foundations of all agriculture — at increasing risk,” Wendy Schmidt, co-founder and president of the Schmidt Family Foundation, said in a statement. “The dedicated scientists of SPUN recognize that to protect fungal networks, we need to bring them into a clearer focus and understand the crucial role they play in cleaning our air, creating our food and making life itself possible.” SPUN says it will use this three-year grant to map mycorrhizal biodiversity around the planet through expeditions to hotspots of biodiversity and places that can survive extreme climate events, as well as places with the potential to store large amounts of carbon. It will also employ machine learning to study underground fungal networks. “We need to work with communities to document underground biodiversity hotspots before they disappear,” Toby Kiers, a professor of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/mycorrhizal-fungi-natures-wood-wide-web-get-a-3m-conservation-boost/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-262572</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Local coverage of Nepal’s ‘Himalayan Viagra’ harvest lacks eco focus, study says</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/10/local-coverage-of-nepals-himalayan-viagra-harvest-lacks-eco-focus-study-says/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/10/local-coverage-of-nepals-himalayan-viagra-harvest-lacks-eco-focus-study-says/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Oct 2022 06:51:07 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/10/19060634/Yarsa-gunbu-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=261650</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Fungi, Insects, Law, Medicine, Natural Resources, Trade, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Traditional Medicine]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — From March to June every year, the hottest news from some of the hilly regions of Nepal revolves around one theme: yarsa gunbu, also known as yarsagumba or caterpillar fungus, and touted around the world as Himalayan Viagra. During the peak season, settlements turn into ghost villages as residents young and old move [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — From March to June every year, the hottest news from some of the hilly regions of Nepal revolves around one theme: yarsa gunbu, also known as yarsagumba or caterpillar fungus, and touted around the world as Himalayan Viagra. During the peak season, settlements turn into ghost villages as residents young and old move to higher grounds in search of the prized Ophiocordyceps sinensis. Considered a potent tonic in traditional Chinese medicine, yarsa gunbu can at times fetch a higher price per gram than gold. Nepal&#8217;s media closely covers issues related to harvesting of the fungus. And, according to a recent study on how media outlets in Nepal portray yarsa gunbu, stories about the potential impacts of climate change on the fungus are also gaining traction: “Unseasonal spring blizzards due to climate change could also be affecting the life cycle of the fungus, which is sensitive to the duration and extent of snowfall,” reads one report. “We can see that issues related to yarsa gunbu are widely covered by media outlets in Nepal,” says Sanjeev Poudel, a researcher at the Global Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies in Kathmandu and the lead author of a recent study on media coverage of the species. But the media also falls short when it comes to covering issues related to policy gaps and challenges related to the species, categorized on the IUCN Red List as vulnerable to extinction. “They tend to focus on resource conflict-related issues and publish editorials on this species to show its importance,” Poudel&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/10/local-coverage-of-nepals-himalayan-viagra-harvest-lacks-eco-focus-study-says/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-261650</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Farmers in Mexico fight coffee disease with resistant varieties and agroforestry</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/06/farmers-in-mexico-fight-coffee-disease-with-resistant-varieties-and-agroforestry/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/06/farmers-in-mexico-fight-coffee-disease-with-resistant-varieties-and-agroforestry/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Jun 2022 20:08:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Magdaléna Rojo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/06/15183212/03-scaled-e1655320949371-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=257292</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Latin America, Mexico, and North America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Agroecology, Agroforestry, Biodiversity, Coffee, Diseases, Farming, Fungi, and Indigenous Peoples]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[SANTIAGO ATITLÁN, Mexico – Lucio Jimenez Ocampo is always surrounded by coffee. In the yard of his house in Santiago Atitlán nestled in the Oaxaca state’s Sierra Norte highlands, there are about a hundred organic coffee plants of different varieties packaged in plastic bags. On his terrace, coffee beans of the Geisha variety are waiting [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[SANTIAGO ATITLÁN, Mexico – Lucio Jimenez Ocampo is always surrounded by coffee. In the yard of his house in Santiago Atitlán nestled in the Oaxaca state’s Sierra Norte highlands, there are about a hundred organic coffee plants of different varieties packaged in plastic bags. On his terrace, coffee beans of the Geisha variety are waiting to be sold to other farmers. The plants are part of an Oaxacan farmers’ project testing coffee varieties and developing agroforestry plantations resistant to a fungal disease, known as coffee leaf rust, that ravaged coffee crops seven years ago. Coffee rust has no cure. But Lucio and other Indigenous Mixe farmers hope the project will protect the majority of their coffee production from the spreading fungus as it climbs further up mountains and reproduces under wetter and warming temperatures. A key to tackling impacts of changing weather patterns on coffee crops is technical support, according to experts. Image courtesy of Noel Rojo. When coffee rust came to Atitlán in 2015, farmers were not prepared. When the parasitic fungi Hemileia vastatrix comes into contact with a coffee plant, it latches on and covers its leaves with orange spots. This ultimately reduces the plants’ ability to conduct photosynthesis. As leaves fall, less coffee cherries and seeds are produced. The seeds (known as coffee beans) inside the cherries are shrunken – affecting the quality and value of the coffee. The state of Oaxaca lost about 50% of its production volume that year. Farmers in Atitlán say the production&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/06/farmers-in-mexico-fight-coffee-disease-with-resistant-varieties-and-agroforestry/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-257292</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Mycoremediation brings the fungi to waste disposal and ecosystem restoration</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/mycoremediation-brings-the-fungi-to-waste-disposal-and-ecosystem-restoration/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/mycoremediation-brings-the-fungi-to-waste-disposal-and-ecosystem-restoration/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Sep 2021 17:14:02 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carly Nairn]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/09/15140846/costa_rica_la_selva_0310-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=247161</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[North America and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Conservation Technology, Environment, Forest Regeneration, Fungi, Global Environmental Crisis, Natural Resources, Research, Solutions, Waste, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[We see disposable masks everywhere these days. Littered on the street and sidewalks, hanging out of garbage cans, floating through the neighborhood on a windy day. Unfortunately, the ubiquitous face coverings aren’t the easiest to dispose of or recycle, but what if they could sprout a mushroom? For Joanne Rodriguez, this is a far better [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[We see disposable masks everywhere these days. Littered on the street and sidewalks, hanging out of garbage cans, floating through the neighborhood on a windy day. Unfortunately, the ubiquitous face coverings aren’t the easiest to dispose of or recycle, but what if they could sprout a mushroom? For Joanne Rodriguez, this is a far better use of a mask after it’s provided its humanly function. “The masks? The mycelium loved it. They were fully grown out in two weeks,” she said. Rodriguez is the CEO of Illinois-based Mycocycle, a new company rethinking how fungi can clean up waste streams. The oft-used adage of “mushrooms can save the world” takes on a new meaning when applied to the flourishing realm of mycoremediation, the idea of harnessing fungi to break down toxins or waste. Recent studies, and new projects in the past few years, have cast new light on an old (a very old) natural process, with innovations and research continuing to bring more people into the work of drafting the humble fungi in the fight to clean up the world. The fungus Trichoderma reesei, shown here growing on finely ground pieces of discarded corn stover (stalks, leaves and cobs), could foster rapid conversion of biomass to fuels. The fungus is known for its profuse production of biomass-degrading enzymes, which enhance the conversion process. Image courtesy of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory via Flickr. Mycoremediation today Mycoremediation, particularly through the use of native fungi, is one of many tools for community restoration&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/mycoremediation-brings-the-fungi-to-waste-disposal-and-ecosystem-restoration/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-247161</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Top 15 species discoveries from 2020 (Photos)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/photos-top-15-species-discoveries-from-2020/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/photos-top-15-species-discoveries-from-2020/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Dec 2020 12:13:11 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/12/27225207/SD_Langur.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=238311</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Frogs, Fungi, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Herps, Insects, Lemurs, Orchids, Salamanders, Snakes, Species Discovery, Spiders, Wildlife, and Year-end review]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In this well-trodden world, the discovery of a species new to science is an exciting event, a glimmer of the uncharted riches of biodiversity still hidden around the globe. “Every year, as scientists explore the world’s ecosystems, search herbaria and fungaria, sequence organisms’ DNA and, increasingly, browse social media, they come across species of plants [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In this well-trodden world, the discovery of a species new to science is an exciting event, a glimmer of the uncharted riches of biodiversity still hidden around the globe. “Every year, as scientists explore the world’s ecosystems, search herbaria and fungaria, sequence organisms’ DNA and, increasingly, browse social media, they come across species of plants and fungi that have not been scientifically described,” says the “State of the World’s Plants and Fungi 2020” report, released in September by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew). Many new species were described this year, including several snakes, frogs, insects, and even new primate species. Turning to the ocean, scientists spotted a beaked whale that may be a new species and a mysterious coiled siphonophore believed to be the longest animal ever recorded. This coiled siphonophore, found by the Schmidt Ocean Institute off the coast of Australia, is believed to be the largest animal ever recorded, measuring 46 meters (150 feet) in length. Photo via Schmidt Ocean Institute. Plants and fungi also continue to represent an underexplored frontier of diversity. This year, the RBG Kew named 156 plants and fungi from Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the U.K. The Missouri Botanical Gardens recently named 10 charismatic plant discoveries from 2020, including a new species of ebony tree, a carnivorous sundew, and a new mint.  However, although a species may be new to science, that doesn’t mean it has never been seen or named. “Many species that are new to science are already known&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/photos-top-15-species-discoveries-from-2020/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-238311</doi>				</item>
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