Mycologist Peter Cohout won the Neuron Award for his research into the beneficial relationship between fungi and plants. He pointed out through his research that mushrooms can affect the shape of his entire landscape. They form a dense network in the soil, which connects the plants, effectively distributes nutrients and helps them to communicate with each other. Listen now, Peter Cohout will answer from 3pm on Wednesday.
Peter Cohoud, a scientist at the Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Republic’s Academy of Sciences, studied botany and archeology at the University of Dortmund in Estonia and specializes in the coexistence of fungi and plant roots in the wild ecosystem, known as mycorrhiza. As he explains, most plants do not receive nutrients directly from the soil through their roots, but through the compound fungus that lives within these roots.
For his work in the Faculty of Academy of Sciences and Sciences, he was awarded the Neuron Prize in 2019 for young promising scientists in the field of biology.
“In the forest, there is an exchange of information between the fungus and the plant. We know how it works, it is fixed in plants, but it turns out that there can be contact between two plants through a mycorrhizal network. A fungus colonizes the roots of two different trees, and they are able to exchange nutrients, but There is also information about pathogenic infections. We know things like this happen, but we’re not yet aware of their importance to the ecosystem, ”Peter Cohout explained in his research. Podcast of the Neuron Endowment Fund.
As he points out, the removal of a mushroom picker from the forest, i.e. a cap and thorn (“leg”), only a small part of the mushroom is largely hidden in the soil and a significant effect on the quality of this soil and the vegetation in it.