When algae met fungi – the hidden story of life’s most successful partnership
The early ancestors of plants were simple forms of algae, which drifted rootless through fresh waters. Most biologists believe that, only when algae partnered with a very different life form – fungi – some 470 million years ago, was it able thrive on land. Indeed, today some nine in 10 land plants exist in symbiosis with what’s known as ‘mycorrhizal’ fungi, which helps their roots to extract nutrients from the ground. This animation from the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks and the Fungi Foundation details how this hidden relationship operates, the vital role these underground fungal networks play in ecosystems worldwide, and the threats they currently face due to human activity.

videoAstronomy
Visualisations explore what the deep future holds for our night sky
6 minutes

videoEcology and environmental sciences
Join endangered whooping cranes on their perilous migratory path over North America
6 minutes

videoEnvironmental history
In Kazakhstan, ‘atomic lakes’ still scar the landscape decades after Soviet nuclear tests
13 minutes

videoMeaning and the good life
Why Orwell urged his readers to celebrate the spring, cynics be damned
11 minutes

videoEarth science and climate
Images carved into film form a haunting elegy for a disappearing slice of Earth
3 minutes

videoAnimals and humans
Join seabirds as they migrate, encountering human communities along the way
13 minutes