TWilight falls into the Ecuadorian jungle when the two scientists spot their first zombie. The smell of damp earth and vegetation rises as Alan Rockefeller takes slow, careful steps, scanning the forest floor with an ultraviolet light.
Suddenly a fragment of undergrowth glows: strands of light cordyceps, became fluorescent by the torch. Dubbed the “zombie mushroom”, cordyceps is known to colonize its insect hosts forcing them to seek a suitable location to release spores. This is the place where the host will die.
Mandie Quark kneels in the wet, spongy earth and carefully digs her fingers around the entomopathogenic fungus to reveal the insect that lies beneath the surface: a thumb-sized beetle. The couple carefully lift and photograph their find before starting their two-mile walk home.
Here in the mountains of Ecuador, the two mycologists embarked on a research expedition into the unprotected rainforests of the upper Amazon. Their mission is to carefully document some of the world’s rarest fungi, which are rapidly declining due to changes in climate, illegal logging and mining.
The Amazon rainforest full of the world’s most diverse flora and fauna. Countless species of fungi dot the landscape, many still unnamed and awaiting discovery. Rockefeller and Quark carefully collect data by photographing and cataloging each specimen for submission to the national herbarium in Quito and eventual DNA sequencing.
Rockefeller and Quark’s ultimate goal is to share their discoveries about Amazon fungi with the world, helping ecological conservation efforts in Ecuador and beyond. They work with the indigenous people Sacha Wasi communitywho invited the scientists to work on their land and exchange information about different mushroom species and their culinary or ecological potential.
At the heart of the process lies the art of myco-photography. Each click of the shutter is an attempt to capture a fleeting moment in the cycle of these fragile organisms, which spend most of their lives underground. “My goal is to take the best possible photo to get people excited about biodiversity and learn more about mushrooms,” says Rockefeller.
The pair’s methods include focus stacking macro photography, a technique that captures every intricate detail of a mushroom, as well as recording the microscopy of the spores and generating DNA “barcode data”. Through this methodology, they aim to ensure that each recorded mushroom contributes to the current understanding of fungal biodiversity.
“Knowing what you have is very important for conservation,” says Rockefeller. “You can’t just say you have a rare nameless mushroom – it doesn’t work.
“If you can name it, then you can preserve it. And if people are going to do chemical analysis to try to make a new discovery based on these fungi, they need a name that they can use to communicate about which fungus they’re using. So taxonomy is really important for that reason.”
Most people will never have the opportunity to visit the rainforest and observe these diverse and elusive fungi, so Rockefeller and Quark shared their findings about social media and app-based platforms, such as iNaturalist, Mushroom Observer, GenBank and MycoMap, to enable others to investigate the intricate details – in some cases, before the species disappears.
As they navigate challenging Amazonian terrain, they aim to open a window to the immense potential of fungi, and the importance of preserving irreplaceable ecosystems.
“It’s hard to stay in the present moment these days—we always have a million things trying to grab our attention,” says Quark. “But the work we do is to draw attention to the here and now and inspire others to do the same.”
She adds: “Mushrooms exist on the precipice of life and death. They remind us that existence is fleeting, and so is our human experience. To be there at the perfect moment to find a beautiful mushroom, you have to be present in all your senses to appreciate that flash in time when the mushroom is at its most pristine.”
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