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Mushroom, yeast, toadstool, mildew or mould. No matter what you call them, fungi are all around us. Or are they? Experts guess up to 1.5 million different fungi inhabit the earth. But in hundreds of years of study, only 7 % of these species are known. Why is this the case? Are these organisms hard to find, or are we not really looking? And are YOU looking? If we really try, what can we find?
Fungi cause disease, spoils food, costs up to R6 800/kg and can make your bread rise. Being so essential, these royal organisms have their own kingdom! But still we tend to neglect their importance. On the IUCN Red Data List, only three fungal species feature. In South Africa, the Botanical Gardens contain a rich assortment of fungi, but very few people are aware of these. So in this UPwithScience project, we will try to right this wrong. From the National Botanical gardens we will collect samples of commonly seen fungi. We will then identify these and report back to SANBI with a list of what we found.
To do this, we will have an exciting expedition to the National Botanical Gardens. A treasure hunt with prizes is at stake, so choose your side carefully: Melissa or Tracy. Both of them are eager and willing, but only one will be victorious.
The race is on to see which team can uncover the biggest collection of interesting mushrooms. To identify our find, we will employ all the tools in the geneticist's arsenal: DNA isolation, PCR, sequencing and BLAST! And when all is said and done, we will report back to SANBI with our list:
"Fungi from the Botanical Gardens"
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