The Fungi Facing Extinction and the Conservationists Working Hard to Protect Them

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Conservationists are ringing the alarm about the fungi facing extinction. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List features vulnerable pandas and endangered tortoises, but it also highlights more than 400 fungi species that are under threat. Gregory Mueller, chief scientist emeritus at the Chicago Botanic Garden and coordinator of fungal conservation programs at the IUCN, and Anders Dahlberg, a professor of mycology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, explain the critical role fungi play in our environment and ways we can protect these threatened species. Recommended reading: Mysterious ‘Dark Fungi’ Are Lurking Everywhere For fans of The Last of Us, our 2023 podcast on real zombifying fungi E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Alex Sugiura with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Here's the truth about AI.
0:02.0	AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into.
0:05.0	ServiceNow puts AI to work for people across your business,
0:09.0	removing friction and frustration for your employees,
0:12.0	supercharging productivity for your developers,
0:15.0	providing intelligent tools for your service agents to make customers happier.
0:19.0	All built into a single platform you can
0:21.9	use right now. That's why the world works with ServiceNow. Visit ServiceNow.com
0:27.8	slash UK slash AI for people.
0:41.0	For Scientific American Science quickly, I'm Rachel Feldman.
1:00.0	Even if you don't know with the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List is off the top of your head, I can pretty much guarantee you've heard of it.
1:03.0	The IUCN keeps tabs on the conservation status of living organisms all over the globe.
1:08.0	Giant pandas are listed as vulnerable on the red list, the Asian
1:12.7	giant tortoise is marked as critically endangered, and lots of other charismatic megafauna have
1:17.9	gotten not so honorable mentions too. But the IUCN recently sounded the conservation alarm
1:24.2	for some creatures many of us spend a lot less time thinking about.
1:28.7	Fungi.
1:29.9	In March, the IUCN announced that its experts had assessed 482 fungi species for the first time,
1:36.3	bringing the redless fungal members up to 1,300.
1:39.5	Around a third of those species are at risk of extinction.
1:43.3	Most folks don't care much about mushrooms or molds, which the IUCN says is a big problem.
1:49.1	Today's guests will help us understand why.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Scientific American, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Scientific American and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.