Mycorrhizal Fungi in Death Valley

Client:

How do you survive in the hottest place on earth? With a little help from friends, of course.

It was 102° in Death Valley when the SPUN crew rolled through. But it's not us that needs help. I'm talking about plants and their soil dwelling partners, mycorrhizal fungi.

These fungi form vast underground networks in the soil and deliver scarce nutrients to plants in exchange for food. This partnership helps plants thrive, especially in extreme environments like the Mojave desert. SPUN was there to take stock of these underground communities.

They brought me along as photographer and documentarian. I tried to take photos that highlight both their work and the landscapes they study. Death Valley was a cooporative backdrop, to say the least. I took a bit of video too, and edited it into a short clip on their work, which you can see below.

In many ways, I feel like I'm suited to this work more than any other. I thrive in extremes, here the 102° weather, hours on dirt roads, and nonstop sampling schedule added to the experience. I understand how an organization will try to sell their science—through stunning imagery that highlights the specific work—and I have the fitness and grit to run around in the heat and get shots without disrupting the work.

For being so essential, these soil fungi are wildly understudied. SPUN is trying to change that. This trip is part of their effort to document fungal diversity across the globe. Once mapped and monitored, researchers can advocate for protecting these fungal communities or better understand how to restore degraded ecosystems.