Sydney Glassman

So there's potentially five to eight million species of fungi out there and there's not very many mycologists.

Like the Mycological Society of America annual meeting, like our largest annual meeting,

might have like 250 to 500 people.

So the amount of mycologists or fungal experts relative to species is low.

And like, we actually do not know how long these things could be sitting around.

Like it's possible that if a forest doesn't burn for, you know, 50 or a hundred years, the sclerotia, these, these resistant propagules could be sitting there that whole time.

And, um,

We we there's very simply very limited research on showing like how long spores can actually persist.

And the other thing is, we don't know if they're like waiting in the soil for the fire or it's possible they could have dispersed in right after the fire.

Yes.

Yeah.

So they are able to break down pyrogenic organic matter, to break down all this high amount of nitrogen and to make it into forms that are easier for other things to eat.

And also they can rehabilitate the soil and they work on making the environment more hospitable for other fungi and plants to come in later.

I think there's a lot of potential for that.

I love fungi and I always, well, my PhD advisor always used to say, mycology without apology.

All right, thanks for having me.