At least 411 species of fungi threatened with extinction due to agriculture, deforestation and global warming – Liberation
Animalsflowers, trees … and even mushrooms. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (Uicn) Updated this Thursday, March 27, its red list of endangered species of extinction By adding 411 mushrooms, to the 1,300 species whose conservation state is solidly documented. This assessment, of course, only concerns a fraction of the 150,000 species of fungi listed to date, on an estimate of 2.5 million varieties on earth. But it illustrates the threats that human activity weighs on the rings: deforestation, the extension of agriculture and cities or the fires that global warming accentuate also affect the world of mushrooms.
« Although mushrooms live essentially hidden underground (…), their disappearance has an impact on life on the surface which depends on them », explains Professor Anders Dahlberg, coordinator of this assessment. « They act a bit like the microbiota of our stomachs », describes the Swedish mycologist, describing a « Very old symbiosis, over 400 million years old, » which has forged current biological diversity. « By losing the mushrooms, we deplete the ecosystem services and the resilience they provide, which goes from resistance to drought and pathogens in crops or trees, to the storage of carbon in the soil », he adds.
Number of mushrooms « Are edible, used in the production of food and drinks, including fermentation, constitute the basis of drugs and support depollution efforts », Also underlines the international collective of renowned scientific institutions in a press release. Among the 411 endangered species, no porcini, chanterelle, boletal or other famous fungus on our plates: most are very specific varieties and « None is one of the dominant components of the reign of mushrooms, even if some have been relatively common and widespread », specifies Professor Dahlberg.
« Mushrooms are the unknown heroes of life on earth, at the very foundation of healthy ecosystems and yet long neglected », underlines Grethel Aguilar, Director General of the IUCN, cited in the press release. « It is now time to put this knowledge into practice and save the extraordinary kingdom of mushrooms », she urges.
Of the 411 endangered species in the world, 279 are due to « The rapid growth of agricultural and urban areas », According to the IUCN. « Nitrogen and ammonia flows from fertilizers and motors pollution also threaten 91 species », Add the consortium. This last type of threats is « Serious in Europe, affecting well -known species in traditional countryside, such as intermedia hygrocybe », An unusual but visible yellow-orange fungus in the meadows of Scandinavia to the south of Italy.
Deforestation, to harvest wood or make room for cropsis the first existential threat for at least 198 species. « The white cup of old forests is particularly harmful, because it destroys mushrooms which do not have time to recover » Contrary to what is happening with rotation silviculture, explains the IUCN. The Tricholoma Colossus, a brown mushroom offshore, is for this motif classified as vulnerable, affected by the disappearance of « 30 % of the forests of ancestral pines of Finland, Sweden and Russia (…) since 1975 ».
Global warming is also involved: in the United States, « More than 50 species of fungi are threatened with extinction due to the evolution of the fire regime ». The fir trees, which have become predominant In the mountains of Sierra Nevadareduce the habitat of gastroboletus citrinobrunneus, a plump fungus with a yellow hat, classified « in danger ».
In total, the IUCN red list lists nearly 170,000 species, more than 47,000, to different degrees, threatened with extinction: this is the case for a quarter of mammals and a third of the amphibians evaluated, which are classified as « Vulnerable », « in danger » Or « Critical in danger ».
