Magic mushrooms: how scientists discovered fungi are the secret ingredient for restoring the world’s forests

The biologist Bethan Manley takes samples on the island of Seil, Scotland. With mycorrhizal fungi central to restoring temperate rainforest, the land where trees are to be planted can be ‘inoculated’ by adding soil from other ecosystems or by transplanting fungal spores. Photograph: Gillian M Allison/Spun

Even in midsummer, the ancient hazelwoods on the Hebridean island of Seil are cool and quiet. Countless slanted stems of hazel support a thick canopy, which blots out the sun and blankets everything below in a sort of “fairytale darkness”, says Bethan Manley, a biologist at the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (Spun).

Moss and lichen coat branches threaded with honeysuckle, forming a great dome above you, adds David Satori, a researcher at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.