In first, doctoral candidate enlists foragers across Israel to help map mushroom DNA
There are over 1,000 species of fungi in the Holy Land; what started as one scientist’s hobby has mushroomed into a collective effort on a scale never before seen in the country
Israeli wild mushrooms, known as macrofungi, can be edible and inedible, healing and hallucinogenic, tough and tasteless, poisonous and deadly.
But despite the wide variety of Israel’s mushrooms, there’s never been a comprehensive mapping of their DNA. This gap prompted mycology enthusiast Elad Gillon to start what he calls a citizens’ science initiative, enlisting mushroom foragers to collect wild mushrooms all around Israel for his doctorate project.
The task is far more daunting than it appears. While there are 100 species of mammals and 500 species of birds in Israel, there are a whopping 1,000 kinds of fungi. Since 2021, mycology enthusiasts have collected more than 800 specimens of macrofungi, some of which have never been identified before.
The foragers have found both familiar and unfamiliar fungi almost everywhere around Israel, from someone’s backyard to a cave in Jerusalem, a sandy beach in Herzliya, and the Arava desert. Israel is on the border of different climate regions — some which are cold, like in the Golan Heights, or hot and arid, such as in the Negev — and boasts an array of broad-leaf and coniferous trees. As such, there is a surprising assortment of mushrooms.
Mushroom research on the scale of Gillon’s project has never been done before in Israel. In the 1970s and ’80s, Nissan Binyamini published many papers and books about mushrooms, including his popular “Fleshy Fungi of Israel.” He collected and identified species according to their physical traits. But until now, nobody has been able to research the DNA structure of Israeli fungi on a large scale.
Gillon, who holds a master’s degree in biology, is a manager at Bargal Analytical Instruments. Although the fungi research is for his doctorate, Gillon views the project as a public service and “not just for a scientific paper.”
What makes the project unique is the grassroots effort of hundreds of mushroom foragers around Israel. Members of a massive foraging group on Facebook have trooped through forests and woods — as well as their own neighborhoods — hoping to unearth undiscovered fungi for the project. The mushrooms they find are examined by group of expert foragers before they are sent to Gillon for research.
Fungi as medicine and fun
As a child, Gillon used to spend summers in the Czech Republic, where his father was from, foraging for edible fungi.
“Fungi tend to hide,” Gillon said, “so it’s a nice game.” It wasn’t until he was an adult that he realized there were fungi to be found in Israel.
Foragers are hungry and love to eat mushrooms, Gillon said, though he admits that mushrooms are not his favorite food. What drives his interest is fungi’s ancient history — and its potential for the future.
“Since the beginning of civilization, fungi are known for their medicinal possibilities,” Gillon said. “They are the original source of antibiotics such as penicillin, and drugs such as cholesterol-lowering statins.” He believes that learning more about fungi could be “the key for discovering other medical treatments.”
Prof. Shay Covo of Hebrew University’s Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology is Gillon’s faculty adviser. Covo took on the project because “it should not be that nobody knows which mushrooms grow in Israel.”
“I just thought that somebody should do it, so I volunteered,” Covo said, adding that the study could shed light on other fields.
“It takes a lot of time and effort to develop a pesticide or fungicide because fungi are masters at adapting, mutating and changing,” Covo explained. “It’s the same for virulent cancer cells that change frequently to survive cancer therapies.”
Therefore, research into the DNA of fungi could illuminate how pathogens evolve.
Gillon said that research into fungi’s DNA is done at a lab in a process similar to the PCR test for COVID, or a paternity test. Every species has a different sequence of letters. The sequencer machine’s results are then compared to existing sequences in a global database.
Gillon and Covo have built a DNA bank, identifying the genetic makeup of each fungus. The project will allow the researchers to continue to collect and identify hundreds of species, including local subspecies and totally new species.
The strange world of mushrooms
Mushrooms can look odd, creative, colorful and sometimes otherworldly, and are neither plant nor animal. While foragers pick the top of the mushrooms to eat, the body of the mushroom is underneath the soil. Called mycelium, this consists of fungal threads.
Fungi share a symbiosis with oak trees, for example, taking sugars from the water of the trees and giving back nutrients, Gillon said. The fungi are “extensions of the roots, and serve as a sort of communication network between trees.”
“If there’s a pest or an insect, one tree can send a message to the other trees via the fungi,” Gillon said.
On the other hand, if a tree is getting sick or weak, the mushrooms could attack the tree, digesting and eating it. After the tree’s death, the mushrooms decompose the tree as part of nature’s recycling activity.
Until recently, Israeli foragers focused on a few edible mushrooms, such as the Suillus species. But there are choice mushrooms in Israel considered delicacies, such as chanterelles and porcini. (Gillon said that foragers are sometimes reluctant to divulge information about where to find these.) Nonedible fungi are bitter or tough, or so small that they’re not really food. Then comes poisonous fungi, and finally, deadly ones.
A catalog of Israeli mushrooms
One of the mycologist specialists helping with the project is Olga Godorova, who built an extensive catalog of Israeli mushrooms as a private project about 15 years ago. When the Association for Wild Mushrooms in Israel was established by Yulia Vilozni several years ago, Amotz Hezroni, one of the Association’s founders, added the catalog to the association’s website.
For Godorova, foraging for mushrooms is nostalgic. She grew up in Ukraine with grandparents and family who were “always working,” and she was often alone.
“When did a family in the USSR let their child stay up after nine at night?” she asked, and then replied, “Only when you had four baskets of mushrooms to clean.”
Godorova came to Israel alone as a teenager and has foraged for mushrooms since 1994 because it makes her feel like “my family is still with me.” Despite the Israel-Hamas war, Godorova still travels around the country to forage with other mycologist friends, because “foraging feeds my curiosity bacteria.” She adds that she sometimes speaks in “mushroom metaphors.”
Godorova, along with Vilozni and other local mycologists, has been instrumental in helping Gillon with the DNA project.
Gillon said that the fungi species will be collected and preserved in the National Natural History Collections in Jerusalem to be used for future global research on biodiversity.
The project has gained the attention of high school teachers and members of the Education Ministry who are integrating the study of fungi into the educational curriculum.
“This is a unique opportunity for hands-on learning experiences for high school students,” Gillon said. “We’re cultivating a new generation of scientists who are passionate about fungal diversity and conservation, and who will be part of the next generation of mycologists.”
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