Underground Explorers: Funding Research in Underexplored Ecoregions

When I started at SPUN in 2022 my first task was to create the Underground Explorers program of which I am now the Director. In designing the program, we started with the philosophy, who could apply, how much we could invest, and what data gaps we were hoping to fill.

In the race to map underground fungi before they are gone, it is imperative that we enlist the best mycorrhizal researchers from everywhere in the world, and we found we had a gap in the amount of research coming out of the Global South. In an effort to remedy this, we created the Underground Explorers program to support mycorrhizal researchers from the Global South, and underfunded countries. Too many countries have little income or invest very little in basic science or basic biodiversity inventories, and it's very difficult to do research in those countries. We knew we wanted to help support mycorrhizal researchers around the world and try to fill some of these funding gaps.

Supporting mycorrhizal research in the global south

When we put out the first call for applications in October 2022, we had no idea how many people would apply. We had enough money to fund nine researchers with $10,000 each, and we were anxious that we might not get enough qualified applicants to award them all. By December we had 105 applications competing for these nine grants, and we knew we were on to something.  

Since then, we have launched three additional funding calls. Two in 2023, and our most recent round of awards in July 2024. We are really excited to have just awarded 41 new grants.

As the program began to grow, we noticed we were getting more questions for support beyond just funding. We were seeing a pattern of people being afraid to apply because there were some knowledge gaps around bioinformatics and sequencing. So we started to explore how we could support more bioinformatics teaching and development; workshops on bioinformatics and eDNA extraction and amplification.

In many locations sequencing is just too expensive, or there isn’t a facility available. So we have built a relationship with Scripps Research in California, and so our Explorers are now able to send their samples directly there for sequencing.

Because we have grantees from around the globe, we are able to see patterns in the challenges they are facing, and we have adapted our program from one cohort to the next to address many of these challenges. Significantly, we are seeing that our technical support and the network we provide are becoming just as important to our grantees as the funding itself is.

Asking the right questions in underexplored ecoregions

Many of the Explorers are out sampling in some of the most underexplored ecoregions in the world. These are areas that we desperately need data from. We are finding that having local researchers in charge of the work in these areas makes the results much stronger. Local researchers ask different questions than an outsider would – they ask research questions that are relevant to themselves and their communities.  

These Explorers know so much about the areas where they are sampling. They are familiar with the land, the plants, the climate, and so they get so much more from fieldwork than a visitor could.

Exploradores subterráneos

There have been many Underground Explorers that I am so proud of – so many have made absolutely amazing achievements through their work in the program. For example, we have a mycorrhizal mycologist from Nepal named Shiva Devkota who is incredibly committed. He works with ectomycorrhizal fungi and has described several new species from Nepal. Shiva is based in Kathmandu, and he does lots of work in very high alpine ecosystems. He also runs a really cool program that teaches communities about poisonous mushrooms so that they can stay safe when they forage.  

There’s also Hannah Karuri from Kenya. I couldn’t believe how fast she worked. Her project is about characterizing the mycorrhizal communities of the Mt. Kenya Forest. She is really efficient, and knows how to get things done.

Then we’ve got Astride Carole Djeuani from Cameroon. She attended a workshop we hosted in Ghana on molecular methods and sequencing. She’s intent on discovering how mycorrhizal fungi are supporting agriculture in Cameroon. She was recently interviewed by Forbes about her work. Her project is a great example of the impact that some of these Explorer’s results could have.

Women leading scientific expeditions

I am a woman mycorrhizal ecologist from Colombia, which is where I continue to do research. My experience as a scientist has changed a lot since I joined SPUN. Before I had this organization behind me I was struggling because researchers here in Colombia have very high teaching loads that do not leave much time for conducting research. 

Funding was a huge challenge because the Colombian government doesn’t appreciate basic research in biodiversity. There is a lot more funding for applied science, and the background biodiversity knowledge gets left behind. 

I am also a mother, which can really make fieldwork challenging. When you are nursing you have to take a break from your fieldwork, and then once you are able to leave your child there’s this push/pull feeling where you can’t wait to get out in the field and do your work, but you also hate to be so far away from your family. This is a problem for a lot of women in this field. Our Executive Director, Toby Kiers, wrote about these challenges in a recent op-ed in the New York Times. Mycology in Colombia is quite dominated by women that might have similar experiences to mine. But there’s usually not enough support for them.  

My first mentor was a woman. Esperanza Franco is a woman professor, and there are many others  that are pretty driven mycologists that are women as well.

Science in the Global South: challenges in the field

I see the same challenges  that I face here in Colombia repeated in many countries of the Underground Explorers program, especially developing countries. For example, we don't have access to reagents or fast sequencing facilities. So, we need to export the samples to other countries for sequencing. We also need to import the reagents we need to perform DNA extraction and it takes forever. It can take months and months. And of course, the price of things increases a lot because most supplies are sold in Euros or Dollars. Colombian currency can fluctuate with inflation or deflation, or currency devaluation. Our grantees in Argentina faced the same problem for example. They were worried because we're sending the money there and with inflation, it could be devalued to half of the amount in a month or less. 

There can be other challenges as well, involving infrastructure, permits, even poor roads that make accessing sampling locations difficult, sometimes unrest or political violence can make reaching the field dangerous. The interesting thing is that, since I am the Director of the Underground Explorers Program and I have lived with these types of circumstances for a long time, I can relate to them. I can understand. So we're very flexible with our grantees, partially with the funding, but also with the time, and with extensions. We understand completing field research can be a real challenge.

Challenges facing mycorrhizal researchers in the Global South

Based on what I have learned, the most common resources that mycorrhizal researchers in the Global South need are: funding, access to a peer community, advice about equipment and sampling techniques, kits, and support with bioinformatics and molecular work.

I am very proud of Underground Explorers and have received positive feedback about the program from the people participating. Underground Explorers is making a little bridge to help keep people in the Global South included in the conversation, to help us produce more data that are really going to move the field forward. The program is breaking down barriers that prevent people from participating – access to journals, top teachers, or conferences. If they aren’t in the room they can’t be part of the dialogue.

The whole project is very anti-colonial. To me, it's like a revolution because we, as scientists in the Global South, didn't have a lot of participation and still we don't. This bothered me, and I thought, “Why? Let’s change that.”