To aficionados, fungi are freaky, mystical and overlooked. They're
helping scientists learn more
[February 17, 2026]
By DORANY PINEDA
ANGWIN, Calif. (AP) — Jessica Allen crunched through fallen leaves among
Manzanita trees hunting for something few have spotted before: the
Manzanita butter clump — a rare and little-known yellow mushroom found,
so far, only along North America's Western coastlines.
It was last seen here in California's Napa County two years ago, and
Allen, a fungi scientist, was keen to find it. But within minutes,
something caught her attention. She knelt, pulled a hand lens to her
eye, and peered nose-close into a rock: lichens — a type of fungi —
bursting with dazzling shapes, textures and colors.
“It's so easy to get distracted, but there's so many lichen!" she said
excitedly.
“That was a good rock,” said ecologist Jesse Miller, president of the
California Lichen Society.
“Ok, let's go find some mushrooms," she exclaimed.
Allen and Miller are enchanted by what they describe as the wondrous and
mystical world of fungi, and they're part of a growing community of
people working to protect them. Nearly all life-forms depend on the
estimated 2.5 million fungi species on Earth, and they contribute an
estimated $54 trillion to the global economy as food, medicine and more,
according to a study published in Springer Nature. Despite their
essential role, they've been largely neglected by conservation efforts
even as they face increasing threats from pollution, habitat loss and
climate change. That's been changing in the last decade thanks in part
to citizen scientists and a greater understanding of fungi diversity.
“It’s a pretty exciting time in fungal conservation," said Allen,
mycologist for NatureServe, a hub for biodiversity data throughout North
America. In that role, Allen is helping accelerate and support fungal
conservation in the U.S. and Canada.
Amateur researchers play a key role in conservation
Fungi are neither plants nor animals. They’re an enormous kingdom of
life-forms that include yeasts (essential for breads, cheeses and
alcohol), molds (the fuzzy stuff on forgotten fruit), lichens (a
symbiosis of fungus and algae or cyanobacteria) and mushrooms (which
range from edible to psychedelic to deadly ). They’re among the planet’s
great connectors and decomposers. Forests need them, and many animals
rely on them for food and nesting.
People have derived medicines like penicillin from fungi. Some are used
as building material or can store planet-warming carbon. But scientists
have only documented about 155,000 species, 6% of the millions they
believe are out there.
Conservation starts with knowing what species exist, where they are, how
they’re doing and their threats, which requires boots on the ground.
This allows conservationists to assess imperiled species and where to
put resources.
That's where groups like the California Lichen Society come in.
“They tend to be the people that often make the most important
discoveries, and they’re the ones who are going to be keeping an eye on
those rare species over time,” said Allen.
On a chilly recent day, dozens of lichenologists and amateur lichen
lovers fanned out across a reserve to get close to rocks and trees.
These annual forays are part treasure hunt, part data collection
excursion and part nature hike, except its explorers often don’t make it
far.
Every powdery, leafy and branchy lichen was an invitation into a
miniature world where “Wows!”, “What the hecks!” and “Oh my gods!”
abound. As chemist Larry Cool put it: “Lichenologists make terrible
hiking partners" because they keep stopping.
Cool's interest in lichens stretches back 53 years to the day he learned
they can be used as natural dyes. “Lichen are more than the sum of its
parts and are mysteriously unpredictable," he said. “I get a lot of
pleasure seeing the incredible variety of creation.”
Ken Kellman is also an amateur lichenologist, but you wouldn't know that
from his immense knowledge. A retired air conditioning and heating
mechanic, he’s geeked out over them the last 10 years or so, learning on
his own and from friends. That obsession has helped scientists discover
the biodiversity in his hometown of Santa Cruz, Calif.
“It just keeps your brain in that place where you’re saying ‘Wow!' all
the time. ‘That’s cool!’ And that’s my favorite place for my brain to
be,” he said.
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University of California, Berkeley students Daniel Clarke, left,
Natalia Rovira and Sarah Campbell take part in a California Lichen
Society field trip at the University of California, Davis'
McLaughlin Reserve in Lower Lake, Calif., Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026.
(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
 Fungi conservation in US ‘is
still far behind’ but changing
Gregory Mueller has spent much of his career in fungi conservation.
As co-chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's
fungal conservation committee, he coordinates all fungal protection
activity across their global network.
According to the group's Red List of Threatened Species, 411 of
1,300 evaluated fungi across the world are at risk of extinction.
Parts of Europe and elsewhere have focused on fungal conservation
for decades, but the U.S. “is still far behind," Mueller said. Only
two fungi species — both lichen — are protected by the federal
Endangered Species Act, while some states like California have legal
protections, while others like New Jersey have added them to
conservation plans.
That's slowly changing, in part because of increasing community
science initiatives in the U.S. and abroad.
“There’s a lot of amateur mycologists ... documenting (fungi) with
photographs, putting their images on iNaturalist and our Mushroom
Observer, and we’ve been able to use those data to better document
fungal diversity,” he said. We're "starting to get some idea of what
species might be in trouble.”
Scientists are still learning about fungi and threats to them
Most fungi are out of sight, spending most of their lives hidden as
a vast, threadlike network called mycelium and producing mushrooms —
called the fruiting body — only when conditions are just right.
That's a big reason we know so little about them, said Nora Dunkirk,
a botanist and mycologist at Portland State University’s Institute
for Natural Resources working to document vulnerable plant and fungi
species to help with conservation efforts.
Among their biggest threats includes climate change. Shifts in
rainfall patterns, hotter temperatures and worsening wildfires can
wipe them out or disturb the delicate relationships between forests
and good fungi. Prolonged periods of flooding can starve them of the
oxygen they need. Logging, development, invasive insects and
pollution also threaten species.
Then there’s overharvesting. The grapefruit-sized and long-lived
quinine conk, for example, has been listed as an endangered mushroom
species in Europe since the 1980s in part because people have picked
too many for their medicinal properties.
“This is an organism that grows on larches all across Europe, and so
people see this as a valuable resource and they use it,” said
Dunkirk. “But this species specifically has been harvested to its
detriment.”
Perhaps the U.S.'s most well-known conservation story indirectly
involving fungi happened in the 1990s. The Northern spotted owl was
in danger, and officials realized that to save them, they had to
manage the entire old-growth forest ecosystems they depended on —
including fungi.
With the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, the federal government
established rules to protect about 400 rare and little-known species
across three states.
Back in California, Allen and her fellow fungi-loving friends
continued their quest for the elusive Manzanita butter clump. They
searched up steep slopes and down by a creek, looking closely by
their feet.
They never found it.
But that’s how it goes when you're searching for something as
ephemeral and unpredictable as mushrooms.
“How many of my days have ended this way? So many,” said Allen. “It
was still a great day.”
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