Current research: plants and fungi

Cedar of Lebanon

Plants and fungi together represent an enormous category of living things that extend from microscopic organisms to great trees. But on whatever scale plants and fungi occur, they are vital for the health of our planet. By trapping energy from sunlight through photosynthesis and converting it into living tissue, green plants are the ultimate foundation for all life. Their value extends beyond that: they convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, anchor soils in place and provide food and shelter for countless animals. One single tree can provide a home for hundreds of other species.

Many plants, fungi and their communities are threatened, and there is rightful public concern over the felling of an ancient forest, or the ploughing up of a species-rich grassland. Other threats can be less obvious, for example the over-harvesting of wild mushrooms and toadstools, or the effects of using agricultural herbicides on the wildflowers of field margins and roadside verges. There are many challenges in plant conservation.

Different plant communities and the above-ground structure they create - the vegetation - together with the underlying geology, are often the basis for defining and mapping terrestrial habitats, which in turn are useful for predicting the presence of different animal communities. Hence we have woodlands and grasslands, and a myriad of types within each. Such habitat description is one of the first field tasks at a new A Rocha study area. Further investigations look at change in plant communities, for they are rarely static in time, and the presence and ecological requirements of species that are particularly rare, threatened or fundamental to the health of the ecosystem.

Woodcock Orchid

Fly Agaric

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God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore.... He described plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls.

1 Kings 4:29,33