How did fungi help create life as we know it?
Prof Katie FieldPlants wouldn’t have made it out of the water 450 million years ago if not for their collaboration with fungi. They are an ancient and extraordinary kingdom that exists everywhere. But if fungi are so essential, why are they so easy to miss?
Learn about this Garden Talk
Today, when we look at plants, there is a high probability we are also looking at fungi. More than 80% of land plants partner with fungi to help those plants extract nutrients from the ground. In fact, plants wouldn’t have made it out of the water 450 million years ago if not for their collaboration with these seemingly brainless organisms. They are an ancient and extraordinary kingdom that exists everywhere, yet you don’t often see them when you look outside.
But if fungi are so essential, why are they so easy to miss? We use them for cooking food and to make medicine, they can even survive in space, induce visions - manipulating the way humans think, feel, and behave. And yet much of their existence over the past billion years remains a mystery.
Katie Field, Professor of Plant-Soil Processes at Sheffield University will join us in The Garden to tell us about this fascinating world, and reveal how the Earth’s oldest kingdom helps us understand our planet and life itself.
Talk outline
50 minutes
The Secret Life of Plants
About the Fellow
Katie is a professor of Plant-Soil Processes. Her research seeks to improve sustainability in agriculture through the potential exploitation of soil microorganisms.
Thank you notes from Garden members
The Secret Life of Plants Collection
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Plants wouldn’t have made it out of the water 450 million years ago if not for their collaboration with fungi. They are an ancient and extraordinary kingdom that exists everywhere. But if fungi are so essential, why are they so easy to miss?
We often think of plants as organisms left on their own to survive. Seemingly still and unable to make any noise they managed to fight with the rollercoaster of evolution. But plants talk to each other. So, what do they talk about?
