Toby Kiers always knew she wanted to be a field biologist, but was frustrated by classroom learning and taking exams while pursuing her undergraduate biology degree. After graduating from Bowdoin College, she took a gap year and won a scholarship to work at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.
There, she became interested in fungi, which she said were historically “ignored” in climate science and conservation. In 2021, she co-founded the nonprofit Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, also known as SPUN.
“Their effect is invisible, but underground,” Kiers said.
The evolutionary biologist was awarded the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement earlier this year for her work studying mycorrhizal fungi and restoring ecosystems using native fungi. Kiers will receive her $250,000 award at a ceremony in Amsterdam, Netherlands Thursday, where she will also give a State of the Environment Address.
“The committee is made up of real superstars — some of my heroes are on that committee,” Kiers said. “It was incredibly exciting, not only to see and in some cases, meet them for the first time in person, but to have them explain the reasoning behind awarding me this prize. You can only blush so much.”
The prize is administered by the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and is often described as the “Nobel Prize for the environment.” Instituted in 1973, the Tyler Prize has been awarded to other notable environmental leaders, including Jane Goodall, Michael E. Mann and Gretchen Daily.
“The Tyler prize is an unbelievable honor,” Kiers said. “It’s exciting because it feels like a recognition for many of the parts of the world that are unseen. It often feels more like an award for the fungi than for me, but it’s an appreciation for the idea that the world takes patience to understand.”
Kiers said mycorrhizal fungi serve as the circulatory system of soils, moving water, nutrients and carbon. The fungi form a symbiotic relationship with plants by removing carbon from the air and feeding it to plant roots. Kiers said mycorrhizal fungi are associated with about 80% of all plant species on Earth.
“People have known about this partnership between plants and mycorrhizal fungi for a long time, for over a century,” Kiers said. ”But they didn’t realize how important it was to [the] climate.”
Kiers said being awarded the prize reveals the environmental community’s commitment to recognizing the advancements SPUN has made in studying fungi, and working across disciplines with a biophysics team led by Tom Shimizu, she noted, allows further documentation of how the fungi move carbon.
While grants are typically awarded to researchers based on detailed study proposals, Kiers said this prize allows the recipient to decide how to use the funds.
“They recognize that the work that we do is hard and expensive, and [the prize] really allows you to sort of dream bigger and think about what you actually want to do,” Kiers said. “This is really an award that says ‘We trust you and you’re going to do good things.’”
Nicole Dubilier serves on the Tyler Prize’s executive committee and is the director at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany. Dubilier said the committee looks to award individuals who conduct excellent research, engage in policy decisions and reach out to the community.
“She is one of the most inspiring scientists I know,” Dubilier said. “She seems to always be the youngest woman to be awarded many prestigious prizes, so what it means is that she’s truly remarkable.”
SPUN Youth is also an Amsterdam-based organization that works to raise awareness among youth to protect underground ecosystems and fungal networks.
“It is so wonderful to see that kind of commitment to engaging the next generation in getting excited about biodiversity research, the importance of things we can’t see,” Dubilier said. “This combination of making the unseen seen, of inspiring researchers or early young people to think about these things, and together with the network that she has created, I find very inspiring.”
SPUN researchers call themselves and anyone curious about Earth’s underground ecosystem “underground astronauts.” Kiers said she hopes she’s creating awareness and an appreciation for fungi, which she called the most complex habitat on Earth.
“I want the legacy to be with this work is for people to see the underground in a different way,” Kiers said. “I want people to sort of feel that excitement and understand that what they’re walking on is magic.”