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Beneath our feet lies a mystery. A complex underground network of fungi keeps our ecosystem alive by exchanging nutrients and carbon with plants and trees. Remarkably, no one quite knows how these advanced and age-old systems operate, and how they are affected by climate change.
The Underground Astronaut follows the American evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers, named one of the 2022 TIME100 Next Innovators, on her quest to map the world’s fungi networks and understand their behaviour before it’s too late. A fragrant and high-stakes journey into the soil. “No fungi, no future.”
The Underground Astronaut is part of Ammodo Docs, a series of short documentaries about original minds in arts and science.
Evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers’ groundbreaking research of fungi is drawing considerable attention from the international media. She urgently campaigns for a greater understanding of fungi, which are powerful allies in our fight against climate catastrophe as they play a vital role in our ecosystem and store large amounts of carbon. All eyes are on her as she digs into the soil to map, protect and restore fungi networks.
Kiers is professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and has won the Ammodo Science Award (2019), the E.O. Wilson Award for Natural History (2021) and a Stairway to Impact Award from the Dutch Science Foundation (2022). She was named as one of the 22 scientists playing a crucial role in expanding our understanding of biodiversity by the UN committee on biodiversity. Kiers is Executive Director and Chief Scientist of SPUN, an organisation advocating for the protection of mycorrhizal networks and underground ecosystems.
