ED- MYCOBLITZ IN BENIN: A LAB IN A BACKPACK

GO2023ITP255A103 01/09/2023 - 31/08/2026 Climate change and human pressure lead to habitat loss and habitat shifts and with this, species are threatened and go extinct. Sudanian woodlands represent a vulnerable ecosystem. Many ecosystem services are under severe threats leading to fatal consequences for local populations whose livelihood is support at 80% by the forest. Fungal diversity is not only enormous compared to other groups of organisms, but also relatively unknown on the one hand and indispensable for ecosystem functioning on the other hand. Many local multi-purpose trees form ectomycorrhiza with fungi that sustain their growth and regeneration. Fungal partners and their function are poorly documented, hampering strongly the regeneration success of the native forests. We want to tackle the problem by investigating the fungal-plant partnership with up to date and easy transportable technics and its potential to assess fungal diversity and relations. Lowcost, miniaturized scientific equipment can be combined with our taxonomic and ecological expertise to rapidly assess biodiversity against the backdrop of a changing world with challenging threats. We will fill a backpack with tools to perform a Mycoblitz in the forests of Benin. We will train experts of different countries in West-Africa to use these novel techniques, and this way we aim at understanding and monitoring diversity of the main players (the ectomycorrhizal fungi!). By using the forests in Benin for this training we have the advantage of working in one of the best studied forests in tropical Africa. This allows us to test out the reliability of our molecular approach based on extraction and analysis of environmental DNA. It also allows us to compare the current data with previous records and hence understand how a changing environment influences the biodiversity. We will focus on the mycorrhizal network, a sine qua non for the trees to survive. This will be translated to guidelines to promote forest protection and restoration.