A specially trained dog may have discovered the latest refugee affected by climate change: Truffles.
"Buffo" the truffle-hunting dog discovered his bounty while roaming the forests of southern Germany. That region is seeing milder winters and changing weather patterns, and isn't known to grow Burgundy truffles -- a subterranean fungal delicacy that can fetch $1,800 per pound. It, and other rare European varieties, typically grow in Mediterranean forests at least 100 miles south and west of Buffo's find.
The discovery, described April 4 in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, will certainly interest truffle-hunters and gourmet chefs. But it may also hint at ecological instability.
“Fungi such as truffles help plants absorb water and nutrients. Without fungi, plants don’t work,” said fungal ecologist Lynne Boddy of Cardiff University, who wasn’t involved in the study. “We know climates are changing and that fungal habitats are shifting. What we’re not certain about are the effects.”
Symbiotic fungi, including truffles, soak up water and nutrients, and deliver them into the roots of plants. In exchange, fungi get sugars from the plants. Some varieties of truffles are prized for their taste, yet are difficult to find because they grow underground on tree roots. Pigs and Lagotto Romagnolo dogs, however, can smell oils secreted by truffles’ bulbous spore-spreading fruiting bodies.
Ulf Büntgen, a paleoclimatologist at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, was out with Buffo when he detected the Burgundy truffle mother lode.
“This wasn’t a small find, but a big and expensive truffle with lots of smaller ones around. It was strange to find it in an area where, so far, this truffle’s existence has never been reported,” said Büntgen, leader of the new study. “The season, early November, was also unusual. This led us to ask, ‘what is driving truffle growth here? Is it connected to climate?’”
Over the last century, harvests of Burgundy truffles have declined by a factor of hundreds in their traditional Mediterranean habitats, possibly because of unusually long and severe droughts. Over-harvesting may also be responsible. The reluctance of secretive truffle hunters to share their own data makes it harder to untangle cause-and-effect.
However, the case for climate impacts on truffle habitat north of the Alps seems stronger. These typically cool regions are seeing milder winters and more precipitation, and the presence of truffles there seems to be on the rise. Boddy, who has studied theresponse of fungi and their plant hosts to climate change, said she wouldn’t be surprised to know climate change is largely responsible for the shift in truffle habitats
Büntgen and his colleagues say it's too soon to be certain why the truffles' range is shifting. They see the new study as a starting point. “Very little in general is known about truffles because of their high price. It makes people very secretive,” he said. “So, we’re spending a year to nail down everything we can about the conditions they require and how different climates affect them.”
According to Boddy, a change in fungal ecology could very well have ripple effects. “When you change the environment, you change a fundamental balance for plants,” she said.
Image: Buffo, a Lagotto Romagnolo dog, owned by Ulf Büntgen's friend, Willy Tegel. His nearly 1-pound Burgundy truffle discovery sits in front. (Willy Tegel)
See Also:
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- Climate Change Caused Radical North Sea Shift
- Antarctic Penguins Run Low on Food
- Climate Change Could Choke Oceans for 100000 Years
- Climate Quick Fix Could Create Toxic Algae Blooms
Citation: “Truffles and climate change.” Ulf Büntgen, Willy Tegel, Simon Egli, Ulrich Stobbe, Ludger Sproll, and Nils C Stenseth. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, April 4, 2011. Vol. 9, Pg. 150–151. DOI: 10.1890/11.WB.004
