Lanzhou by night ..

Crossing the Wuqiao Mountains to visit morel farms near Gulang, in northern Gansu province… at the gate of the Tengger desert …

‘Without them there is no life on Earth’: why interest in fungi conservation is mushrooming Amid growing evidence of fungi’s key role in ecosystems and storing carbon, mycologists seek greater recognition of the need to preserve ‘funga’ as much as flora and fauna

‘Without them there is no life on Earth’: why interest in fungi conservation is mushrooming www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Summer Palace …

Strolling along the Summer Palace river 😌
#Beijing

Strasbourg or Beijing?

I ❤️ CPP*

* College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing

Ready for the official dinner 😉

Spring in Beijing 👌

🎉Celebrating a lifetime of impact in mycorrhizal science

We are proud and thrilled to announce Nancy Collins Johnson (Northern Arizona University) as the IMS Eminent Research Award 2026 recipient

mycorrhizas.org#awards

👏 Join us in celebrating her at
@icom2026.bsky.social

Celebrating impactful mid-career research 🌱🍄

We are proud and thrilled to announce
@balachaudhary.bsky.social from @dartmouthartsci.bsky.social College, as the IMS Mid-Career Mycorrhiza Research Excellence Award 2026 recipient.

👏 we look forward to celebrating at @icom2026.bsky.social

Turning green … magical momentum!

How arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi maintain plant nitrogen acquisition under drought While arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) influence plant nitrogen (N) acquisition and drought tolerance, the complex interactions governing N uptake under varying water deficits remain unclear. To addressing this, well-characterized mycorrhizal tomato type (MYC) and its mycorrhiza-defective mutant (referred to as rmc) were labeled with 15NH4Cl under normal and drought conditions in a greenhouse. We quantified 15N allocation in plant biomass and rhizosphere soil, while assessing shifts in activities of β-N-acetylglucosaminidase and leucine aminopeptidase. MYC increased tomato total biomass relative to rmc under both water regimes, with the most pronounced root biomass enhancement observed under drought (64–74%). Similarly, MYC increased tomato 15N uptake compared to rmc, with a greater increase under drought (80–104%) versus normal (55–94%) conditions. This phenomenon can be ascribed to elevated 15N enrichment in microbial biomass and increased activities of β-N-acetylglucosaminidase and leucine aminopeptidase. This was further supported by the positive correlations between tomato 15N acquisition and 15N incorporation into microbial biomass as well as activities of β-N-acetylglucosaminidase and leucine aminopeptidase. Collectively, AMF alleviated drought stress and improved plant productivity through enhanced root N-acquisition capacity, increased microbial biomass and enzyme secretion, and optimized soil N mineralization processes.

How arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi maintain plant nitrogen acquisition under drought | Biology and Fertility of Soils | Springer Nature Link

Climate niche models correctly predicted the direction of some empirically documented range shifts for bird species in the genus Tyrannus. CREDIT: Jeewantha Bandara.

Climate niche models underestimate the speed with which species move in response to climate change, according to comparisons between the models and observed shifts for more than 3,500 species. Median rates were four times faster than predicted. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/Mokn50YCqty

I am so proud of this paper ⬇️ recently published in PNAS 🤩 Four years in the making and countless computing hours to get bioclimatic velocities from species distribution models #SDMs that were tailored to each species and study from which we extracted empirical estimates of species range shift rates

Beautiful!

Working on our metatranscriptomics paper on montane soil fungal communities of NW Yunnan comes with an unexpected benefit: an excuse to browse photographs of oak and fir forests, Rhododendron woodlands, and alpine meadows that most mycologists will never visit in the field.

Chinese red pine trees, Pinus tabuliformis, near the Great Wall of China. Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wandering_angel/

Commotion in the rhizosphere microbiome: a paper in #FungalBiology describes research on the complex community of microorganisms that develops around the roots of the Chinese Red Pine tree. Read the paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.fu...

CSP Large Scale Call | Joint Genome Institute The Community Science Program Large Scale Call is focused on genomic science projects that address sustainable biofuel and bioproducts production.

📢 Letters of Intent for our Large Scale call, part of our Community Science Program, are due April 9. Projects should leverage systems-based approaches to address biofuel and bioproducts production.
🖥️ 🧬

More info: jgi.doe.gov/work-with-us/proposals/c...

❄️Visual Omics Series 15❄️ Out now! Comparative genomics of 129 plant-associated fungi focusing on Antarctic endophytes. Visuals styled after Edward Wilson's Terra Nova Expedition. @fmartin54.bsky.social @mycocoroom.bsky.social @oistedu.bsky.social 👉 shorturl.at/5IM8A 🧪🧬🖥️ #Genomics #Fungi #DataViz 🍄

Young leaves of Japanese maple unfurling in quiet grace…
Les feuilles d’érable s’ouvrent avec une infinie délicatesse…
mais ...
Dans la lumière des feuilles, on oublie souvent l’ombre des racines.

I just found a snag that fell over some time ago - the shelf fungi grew into circles! I’d never seen this before!

Mousse Une écofiction magistrale qui explore le lien intime qui unit l'être humain à la nature.

Cela m'évoque ce beau et surprenant roman de Klaus Modick, Mousse (dont une édition illustrée serait magnifique.)
www.ruedelechiquier.net/fiction/327-...

On the flank of a dead beech, the lumpy bracket has surrendered its corrugated surface to microscopic algae — a blazing chartreuse mantle in the March light. Two kingdoms in accidental alliance: death in the forest is never anything other than another way of proliferating.

Sur le flanc du fayard mort, la tramète bossue (Trametes gibbosa) s'est laissé coloniser par des algues microscopiques — un manteau de chartreuse vif qui flamboie. Deux royaumes en alliance de circonstance : la mort en forêt n'est jamais qu'une autre façon de proliférer.

Lumpy bracket, Tramète bossue (Trametes gibbosa)

Le Vieil Hêtre
The Old Beech Tree

We sequenced the genome of 'desert ginseng' (Cistanche deserticola) - a leafless parasitic plant that gave up photosynthesis - and found it lost huge chunks of its own genome…but started stealing genes from its host!

Thanks to my collaborators Prof Huang + her talented team👏🏻

lnkd.in/evF5iU9G

Photo of grey and orange lichens growing on dark coloured rock. The larger lichen (grey colour) is comprised of long, slender, branching lobes. The orange lichen is sitting on part of the grey lichen, toward the top of the photo.

Physcia sp #lichen (grey) with a dollop of Xanthoria sp lichen (orange). Northwest Territories, Canada. #fungi #fungifriends

🦠Tree mycorrhizal associations predict fungal communities and indirectly affect ecosystem functions via soil microbial communities.

🔍 Article: buff.ly/LMiLXXP