\n<\/p>\n
I<\/span>nside a large greenhouse at the University of Kansas, Professor Liz Koziol and Dr Terra Lubin tend rows of sudan grass in individual plastic pots. The roots of each straggly plant harbor a specific strain of invisible soil fungus. The shelves of a nearby cold room are stacked high with thousands of plastic bags and vials containing fungal spores harvested from these plants, then carefully preserved by the researchers.<\/p>\n The samples in this seemingly unremarkable room are part of the International Collection of Vesicular Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (INVAM), the world\u2019s largest living library of soil fungi. Four decades in the making, it could cease to exist within a year due to federal budget cuts.<\/p>\n For leading mycologist Toby Kiers, this would be catastrophic. \u201cINVAM represents a library of hundreds of millions of years of evolution,\u201d said Kiers, executive director of the Society for Protection of Underground Networks (Spun). \u201cEnding INVAM for scientists is like closing the Louvre for artists.\u201d<\/p>\n The arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi conserved by INVAM are symbiotic organisms that support the growth of 70% of land plant species across all ecosystems. In exchange for sugars and fats, they provide plants with vital nutrients \u2013 phosphorus, nitrogen, trace metals \u2013 and buffer them against drought, disease and other stressors. They also represent a substantial underground sink for carbon dioxide.<\/p>\n INVAM maintains living spores of more than 900 distinct fungal strains collected from six continents. It\u2019s an irreplaceable hub for mycological research worldwide \u2013 but these fungi also have practical power: restoring degraded ecosystems, rebuilding damaged soils and slashing artificial fertilizer use. They are essential tools for growing food and undoing the environmental harm caused by agriculture.<\/p>\n Established in 1985, INVAM has relied on successive federal grants for its entire existence. Its latest US National Science Foundation (NSF) funding ended in May. As curator and professor Jim Bever and team prepare a new funding proposal, the outlook is ominous: the Trump administration\u2019s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 would slash NSF funding by 57% and make it even more difficult to win the remaining funds.<\/p>\n Without another grant, Bever estimates the collection can limp along for perhaps another year. Beyond that, INVAM could be forced to close. \u201cI have a hard time thinking about that possibility,\u201d Bever said, \u201cbut we can\u2019t deny it\u2019s true.\u201d For now, INVAM is surviving on temporary research grants and volunteer labor. Unlike the collection\u2019s previous home at West Virginia University, which provided institutional support for personnel, the University of Kansas covers infrastructure and overhead costs but not staffing.<\/p>\n <\/span>Liz Koziol and Terra Lubin stand amid sudan grass plants used to culture AM fungal spores in INVAM\u2019s greenhouse at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.<\/span> Photograph: Ben Martynoga<\/p>\n And the staff are critical. <\/strong>Unlike seeds stored in vaults or cells frozen indefinitely, without sustained, meticulous work, the spores of AM fungi die. At INVAM, associate curator Lubin works at a microscope to isolate and identify AM spores from intact soils. Seen through the microscope, these spores are visually stunning: glistening orbs, packed with nutrients needed to support young fungi.<\/p>\n Lubin then paints isolated spores on to the roots of a sudan grass seedling. These host plants will grow in a sterile greenhouse for 12 weeks while fungi colonize their roots and soil. Then the plants will be water-starved, prompting the fungus to produce millions of spores, which workers harvest and store in the adjoining cold room. For every one of INVAM\u2019s 900-plus strains, this process must be repeated annually.<\/p>\n \u201cThe isolation and maintenance of AM fungi requires an arcane skillset,\u201d said Bever. \u201cThere really isn\u2019t another lab in the US that has been doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n INVAM prepares small batches of AM fungal spores to distribute or sell to other researchers and land managers. But Bever is clear this isn\u2019t a commercial operation, and INVAM has neither the capacity nor the ambition to scale up production. That matters because the commercial AM fungus market is rife with problems.<\/p>\n In a 2024 study, Bever and colleagues tested 23 products marketed as fungal biofertilizers \u2013 AM spores alleged to boost plant growth naturally. <\/strong>Eighty-seven per cent failed to colonize plant roots. Many contained only dead spores or no spores at all. Some products contained known plant pathogens. A large-scale 2022 study by European researchers revealed similar failings. Bever and Koziol\u2019s 2024 mata-analysis of global research reached the same disturbing conclusion: the majority of commercial AM fertilizers are worthless.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, the quality of most products available to farmers or restoration practitioners is really just terrible,\u201d said Bever.<\/p>\n Yet land managers are buying them. The global market for fungal biofertilizers is worth $1.29bn. Most of that money is being wasted on products that simply do not work. Bever sees two key problems: the industry lacks regulation, and most producers lack the specialized expertise needed to steward and distribute these delicate organisms effectively. Meanwhile, the public research infrastructure that could provide real solutions struggles to survive.<\/p>\n The failure of most commercial biofertilizers stands in stark contrast to research demonstrating what these organisms can actually achieve.<\/p>\n At a field research plot near INVAM\u2019s base in Lawrence, Kansas, the impact of invisible fungi is obvious. Nine years ago, this was a tired old hay field, dominated by invasive grass. Today it is a riot of color and diversity. Twelve-foot prairie docks tower over head-tall grasses; grasshoppers leap and butterflies flit between late blooming flowers, even in October. This small patch has become a reincarnation of the tall-grass prairie that once dominated the central US states. It was this ecosystem that built the deep, fertile soils that made this area such a prime target for conversion to farmland \u2013 a shift that has diminished the prairie to a mere 1-4% of its original extent.<\/p>\n AM fungi drove the transformation. In 2016, INVAM curator Koziol seeded plots with dozens of native prairie plants, plus AM spores from surviving old-growth prairie fragments. Control plots received the seeds but not the fungi. As a result, dozens of plants in the control plots failed to establish and all plants grew slowly. Nine years on, the difference between control and AM-treated plots is still clear.<\/p>\n Modern agriculture decimates AM fungi \u2013 which is why reintroducing them can deliver such dramatic results. Fungicides used to control plant diseases seep into soils, killing AM fungi. Excessive synthetic fertilizer application causes plants to break symbiotic ties, starving fungi. Ploughing destroys their underground networks. As a result, AM fungi often vanish entirely from cultivated land, \u201cWe can barely even find the DNA [of AM fungi] in some of the soils that have been in intensive agricultural production,\u201d said leading fungal ecologist Matthias Rillig of Freie Universit\u00e4t Berlin.<\/p>\n This matters because AM fungi disperse slowly \u2013 they produce no above-ground fruiting bodies to scatter spores on the wind. As a result, reintroduction is often essential for restoration.<\/p>\n Building on their successful prairie restoration experiments, Bever and Koziol see potential for AM fungi in establishing prairie strips \u2013 patches of deep-rooted, species-rich perennial plants within existing farm fields that boost pollinators and limit fertilizer runoff, which contaminates groundwater and creates dead zones in bodies of water.<\/p>\n \u201cPrairie strips are awesome,\u201d said Bever, but he believes there\u2019s grander potential in the Conservation Reserve Program. This federal scheme has already enlisted more than 20m acres, supporting landowners to transition marginal farmland into native grassland and woodland to improve soil health, retain water and store carbon. \u201cThe return on that investment would be much greater if there was a national policy to reinoculate with native mycorrhizal fungi,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Beyond habitat restoration, and despite the current failure of most commercial fungal biofertilizers, AM fungi can be useful in mainstream agriculture. In 2016, Koziol founded MycoBloom to produce high-quality preparations of old-growth prairie fungus spores. In addition to restoration practitioners, customers report promising results in vineyards, orange orchards, and high-value organic crops such as peppers and tomatoes.<\/p>\n The effects of AM fungi are likely to be strongest in perennial crops, including new grains like Kernza, whose roots remain in the ground long enough for stable symbiosis to establish. But evidence shows AM fungi can also boost growth of annual staples such as maize.<\/p>\n \u201cThe benefits of mycorrhizal fungi are real,\u201d said Bever. Yet scientists are only beginning to understand how these organisms work. Numerous research questions about AM fungi can only be answered with living libraries such as INVAM, Bever added. Why do AM fungal cells contain thousands of nuclei, for instance, when ours need just one? And how can apparently distinct species merge their cells to create hybrids? \u201cResearch on mycorrhizal fungi is totally dependent on having these fungi in culture,\u201d Bever said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe current administration has shifted funding away from basic science,\u201d he added, \u201cand while there is always a hope that private donors could fill that void, I don\u2019t think there is a real substitute for federal investment.\u201d<\/p>\n Kiers, now a professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, described how visiting INVAM in the 1990s to identify spores collected from Panama\u2019s hyper-diverse rainforests shaped her entire career: \u201cAfter seeing the collection, I was hooked. It changed the way I saw the underground.<\/p>\n \u201cTo have any hope in leveraging fungi for future climate change strategies, restoration efforts and regenerative agriculture, we need to safeguard this collection,\u201d Kiers said.<\/p>\n Merlin Sheldrake, mycologist and author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures, agreed emphatically.<\/p>\n \u201cThese organisms are vital ecosystem engineers that hold the key to so many problems we face,\u201d he said. \u201cTo lose this library would be an unimaginable tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Inside a large greenhouse at the University of Kansas, Professor Liz Koziol and Dr Terra Lubin tend rows of sudan grass in individual plastic pots. The roots of each straggly plant harbor a specific strain of invisible soil fungus. The shelves of a nearby cold room are stacked high with thousands of plastic bags and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[2717,1066,4604,14277,4729,3777,2770,1317,2104,2188],"class_list":{"0":"post-39201","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-closing","9":"tag-danger","10":"tag-defunding","11":"tag-ecosystem","12":"tag-engineers","13":"tag-fungi","14":"tag-library","15":"tag-living","16":"tag-uss","17":"tag-vital"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Most commercial biofertilizers are \u2018really just terrible\u2019<\/h2>\n
But quality biofertilizers can be priceless<\/h2>\n