Long Overlooked as Crucial to Life, Fungi Start to Get Their Due

Great article. Fungi produced the environment we now live in. The symbiotic relationship plants have with fungi is the basis behind the idea of no-till farming. Plants are much healthier and require less input when there is a thriving fungal community in the soil. Tilling kills fungal mycelium and turns the balance to bacteria.

As an aside, I'm always perplexed by these statements:

> There are as many as 12 million species of fungi, yet there are just 155,000 or so known species, leaving vast numbers undescribed.

"There are as many as 12 million species of fungi, yet there are just 155,000 or so known species..."

The second number makes sense: it's how many species we've identified. But the first number... how can we know how many we don't know?

This kind of thing pops up all the time (X number of crimes go "unreported"... if they're unreported how can we say that?).

I get that they may be estimates. If so, it's pretty important that that estimation process is described.

Might as well say there are as many as 12 trillion species of fungi.

Two mushrooms walk into a bar.

The bartender says "You can't come in here."

They say "Oh C'mon we're fun guys!"