My name is Ulf Büntgen, I'm professor of environmental systems analysis at the
Department of Geography and I'm interested in understanding the ecology
of truffles, mainly in light of on-going global climate change.
There are three main species of highest scientific interest but also of
gastronomic and culinary interest. This is a white truffle, this is growing in a
very small area in northern Italy and there is black or Perigord truffle that
is widespread across the Mediterranean and the third one
the Burgundy truffle and this one is mostly distributed across many parts of
Europe including the UK.
Although the Burgundy truffle is growing
in this part of the UK we still don't know anything about its ecology.
Our research highly depends on the skills of our truffle dog because without the
dog there is absolutely no way to get at least even an idea where they could grow.
The dog is so skillful that he would actually scan them in this radius and then
that's our only way and it's the best way to harvest them.
One of the biggest obstacles in our research on truffles and the truffle
ecology is that the lifecycle is occurring below ground. So when a dog
is guiding us and starting to dig we are starting to destroy its environment
because the fruit body that we are actually interested in is living in a mycelium
network. If we destroy the soil surroundings that's the same as as if we
would basically take an apple from the tree
we can't analyze its growth afterwards any more.
The Botanical Garden and the botanical garden here in Cambridge being located in an
environment where we know truffles are occurring actually so we have preferable
climatic and geological conditions. The difference in the Botanical Garden is
that most of the trees are growing on their own so these are solitary trees. If
we find a truffle we know exactly with which tree they were growing in
relationship plus the variety of potential hosts is enormous.
The Botanic Garden was founded on this site in order to support the
university's teaching and research, it's always had a major role in research the
trees I'm standing in were planted by Darwin's mentor John Henslow in order to
help think about the meaning of species and the nature of variation and these
ideas led into the theory of evolution. So there are lots of firsts involved in
this project - it's the first time we've looked at the truffles on the roots of
our tree it's the first time we've had a dog involved in a research project in
the garden but as far as we know it's also the first time that anybody in the
world so to which species of trees these truffles can grow on and by definition
out in the wild you get in particular trees growing in particular habitats,
here we've got our specific soil type and habitat we've got two thousand
different trees growing in it so it's the first time anybody's really been
able to ask that question which species of trees they'll live on and it's a
really great example of how the garden is a living laboratory for this kind of
interdisciplinary research.
Once Lucy has found a truffle the first thing to do would be to stop her from
eating it and I will then place the truffle the so called fruiting body into
a bag and record the GPS data. Then I will take the truffles to the lab where
we will measure their weight and also the level of ripeness and depending on
how ripe the fruiting body is, you become witness to a truly magnificent and
mysterious interaction between the plant and the fungus which is then manifested
by a beautiful labyrinth of white and caramel brown.
Botanic Gardens are really
fascinating in the way that they can act as guardians for above ground
biodiversity. So with this study we're actually trying to unravel the below
ground diversity so this adds a completely
new dimension - it's like the merging of two worlds of the way we understand
nature and also the awareness we have about the huge variety which lies
beneath our feet and just waits to be discovered.