What do people think a fungal taxonomist is?
I suspect people wouldn’t really know. I’m very specialised actually; I work on just a single group of organism: the fungi that form Arbuscular Mycorrhiza (their formal name is the Glomeromycota). These fungi are so specialised that they can’t live without their plant partners. They are essential to plant growth and they assist plants to take nutrients up to the soil. It’s a mutual thing so they get carbohydrates from the plant. But a fungal taxonomist is someone who names and classifies fungi.
What did you study at the OU and what was your experience like as a student?
I did all the foundation courses. I had a Foresters certificate and a few O Levels but that was all my qualifications at the time. The OU gave me the opportunity to do a degree which otherwise would not have been an option.
I did Maths and Science which were terrific and went on with Sciences. I did Electronics but never understood much about it (though I managed to scrape a pass). That got me the basic Bachelor’s degree. It was a very rewarding time, even though it was hard work. I really felt like a pioneer in this new educational experience, and will always be grateful for the opportunity.
I was about to start on my Honours when I met at work an American Scientist (the late Prof. Sande McNabb) who was on sabbatical (a tree pathologist). He was interested in my work on Dutch Elm disease and offered me the opportunity to go to America for four years and study a PhD at Iowa University. However, when I arrived in America, the funding for Dutch Elm disease had run out so I had the opportunity to work in a new area of interest: mycorrhiza.
I discovered most of the fungi I was finding didn’t have proper names (or names at all) and the names given to some of them were ’pre-Linnean’ – that is, they were more or less just described as ‘little yellow spores’ or ‘white spores with a bulb at the base’. I got interested in naming them and separating the different species and it went from there.
There are only three or four who work on taxonomy in the world. I suppose quite a few more describe ‘new species’ by comparing them with anything that already exists but that doesn’t interest me so much as the classification (placing them in a natural order).
Is it all lab based or do you go into the field?
Sometimes I do go into the field and collect, but much of what I do is either through high powered microscopes, or (in cooperation with a colleague in Germany) with DNA analysis. These particular fungi are difficult things to work with. Because they mostly develop underground, they are the sort of things few would know about or see but we are pretty sure that plants would not have evolved from aquatic conditions without the help of these symbiotic fungi. So plants with roots co-evolved with the ancestors of these fungi.
Do you have any advice for OU students hoping for a career in Science?
If you’re looking for fortune, academic science isn’t the place to go but, if you’re looking for a very satisfying life with constant interest Science is the place. Work hard, develop an interest and find something that nobody else is doing, but most of all, throw yourself into it with enthusiasm and a sense of discovery.
Comments
Very, very, interesting. By all means anyone interested should aim for to find something that noone else is doing. But you will most likely need to find something more mundane to bring in an income first.
Peter Canning.