Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind

Richard Fortey
Williams Collins, £25.00

At first glance, the unsuspecting reader could be forgiven for thinking they were buying a sci-fi book about a mysterious life form. They would not be entirely in error, as fungi are different in almost every way from plants and animals. Yet fungi live among us and all other life on Earth.

Fungi are essential to the continued life of other organisms for, as Richard Fortey suggests, without them, Earth would soon be covered by detritus. Their job within an ecosystem – and indeed the biosphere – is partly to decompose the dead products of other life, and decomposition by fungi allows nutrient recycling.

Even more amazing are tree species and their mycorrhizal collaborators, which form a binding relationship that benefits both species, with the fungal mycorrhiza ending up as the larger organism.

The author is an expert on the fungal kingdom of life and is enthusiastic about the variation of these organisms, providing in-depth details of naming as well as acknowledging the constant name changes due to new scientific understanding.

Fortey’s work has 23 chapters, each with an enticing title such as ‘Stinkers’ and ‘Vampires’, and is both a good read and a detailed store of fungal information – it may even make us more adventurous in the fungi we choose to eat.

Pat Sang CBiol MRSB

Reviewed by Pat Sang CBiol MRSB, managing director of Animal Biology and Care Education Ltd