Get to Know: Toby Kiers

And why she believes fungi hold the key

We have a new feature here at The Instigator! 

Many of you have asked me who I think is doing interesting work that we can learn from. There’s so many to list, but I didn’t want to just name names. I wanted to give you an inside view.

So in our new occasional interview series, I’ll introduce you to some of the folks I work with and admire a lot. I hope these snapshots and diverse perspectives will inspire readers in thinking about how they can make a positive impact too. 

So without further ado.. 

Meet Toby Kiers

Who knew that fungal networks were responsible for massive nutrient movement underground? Toby Kiers does, and she’s making the world appreciate the beauty and complexity of underground ecosystems. Toby is my friend, a Professor of Evolutionary Biology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Executive Director of SPUN, a new non-profit working to protect and harness the fungal networks that regulate the Earth’s climate and ecosystems. She is widely published in peer-reviewed journals such as Science and Nature, was named by TIME as an emerging leader of 2022, and is the 2023 recipient of the Spinoza Prize — the highest scientific award in the Netherlands – for her work decoding complex nutrient flow patterns in fungi.

I admire Toby and SPUN very much of course. Therefore I am thrilled to serve as Board Chair and serve with fellow board members Rose Marcario and Jeremy Grantham. Toby and I have even written here about SPUN’s work before.

Toby, tell me something that surprised you in the last year or so.

I am always most surprised by what I see from behind the microscope. My lab studies the complex flows of carbon inside long thin threads of fungal tubes. We are consistently amazed by the speed and precision with which mycorrhizal fungi move carbon: imagine a fast-moving river flowing in two opposite directions simultaneously. We recently published a paper showing that mycorrhizal networks help draw down 13 billion tons of CO2 per year into the soil, equivalent to ~1/3 of global energy-related CO2 emissions. Yet we have no understanding of how fungi regulate these carbon flows. It’s surprising more people aren’t working on this question.

What is the most promising initiative you are working on (or want to)?  

At SPUN, we recently launched the Underground Explorers Program to fund local researchers to sample fungi in some of the most remote, understudied ecosystems on Earth. There is a huge wealth of knowledge in important zones of undocumented biodiversity. So far this year we have awarded research grants to 19 Underground Explorers around the globe, and we will award 30 more before the start of 2024. By working with researchers across the world, we can start to map the biodiversity and function of mycorrhizal networks to kickstart the development of nature-based solutions for climate mitigation, restoration, and regenerative agriculture.

What do you believe environmentalists tend to get wrong? 

Most of the world, including environmentalists, has been focused on aboveground ecosystems. The world beneath our feet is just as important and complex, yet so much of it remains unseen. We need more underground astronauts investigating this frontier, and we need more environmentalists to consider the belowground when they think about biodiversity, conservation, and climate change.

If you were in charge and could institute any single public policy today, what would it be? 

Easy. More funding for science. And more funding to make that science accessible and open to policymakers.

Where is the coolest place your work has taken you? 

An impossible question. My work has taken me everywhere from the highest mountain in south-east Asia to the most remote island on Earth. One of our last expeditions was in Lesotho in Southern Africa. Known as the “Mountain Kingdom,” it is the only nation in the world entirely above 3000 feet. We worked with local collaborators to collect fungi in high-altitude wetlands that store extraordinary amounts of carbon. It felt like a different world up there.

Share a piece of advice for young people who want to champion environmental challenges.  And how about some advice for old-timers (like me) too. 

For young and old alike: Less time behind computers, more time getting dirty.  

People often ask me what SPUN does.  I usually respond with something like this: “SPUN seeks to protect biodiversity underground like TNC and WWF have been doing for decades above ground.”  Is that right?

That is right. Our mission is simple: Map and protect the mycorrhizal networks that regulate the Earth’s climate and ecosystems. We cannot protect the underground until we know what is there. For decades, scientists have been documenting critical links between underground ecosystems and climate, biodiversity, and food/forest systems. Now we need to translate this work into nature-based solutions.

The Instigator believes that everyone has some important and special capability they can use to make a positive impact on the world. What’s yours? 

My superpower is to make the invisible visible.

What are you reading these days?

The Liars of Nature and the Nature of Liars: Cheating & Deception in the Living World

By Lixing Sun

Thank you, Toby! 

Onward,