Dark biodiversity

 

Everyone has heard of dark matter in the universe. Of course, nobody has actually seen it (LOL). Meanwhile, strange shit is happening right here on Earth. Apparently, there is a “dark biodiversity” right under our feet (or at least in the forest), with hundreds of thousands (sic) of cryptic fungal species. Dark *fungal* matter? Is anyone really surprised?

Apparently, no man (or womyn) has ever seen these fungi, but their presence is revealed by analyzing fungal DNA samples from all over the world. Perhaps as many as 20 class-level fungal taxa are completely dark at present.

I assume the Swedish scientist who wrote the blog post is right when he says that this could impact our entire understanding of forest ecology, or perhaps ecology in general. It´s also quite fascinating that discoveries of this sort can still be made today, in our all-knowing scientific age. It reminds me of another fungus-related breakthrough a couple of years ago, when it was revealed that many lichens are *triple* organisms, not just double ditto. I mean, how can you miss that for so long?

I suppose my romantic side wants to believe that the discovery of a dark biosphere (or at least fungosphere) somehow means that aliens, fairies, ghosts and some smelly ape named Bigfoot might be real too, but another conclusion is (of course) that the real “cryptids” are microscopic. Or nearly so. Cryptozoology must cede ground to crypto-mycology. Go figure.

The first link below goes to a non-technical piece, while the second goes to the recent technical paper discussing the taxonomical problematique of these dark taxa. It seems the present nomenclature can´t accommodate them, Mother Gaia once again confounding the formalistic petty bureaucrats of Official Science. Or, to put it in more folksy language: Fuck around and find out!

Hundreds of thousands of fungi are denied scientific names

MycoKeys (technical article)