Evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers is one of this year's recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship. The MacArthur Fellowship is a five-year gift to individuals who show exceptional creativity in their work and the prospect for still more in the future.
Fellows receive $800,000 stipends that are bestowed with no conditions; recipients may use the money as they see fit.
Symbiotic partnerships
Kiers is an evolutionary biologist investigating symbiotic partnerships between plants, fungi, and other microbes. She illuminates the evolutionary mechanisms underlying cooperation between species as well as the role of plant-microbe mutualisms in ecosystem health. Kiers’s research shows that microbes are not passive accessories to plants but powerful actors in their own right.
Underground fungi
In 2021, Kiers co-founded the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) to map and protect the Earth’s underground fungi. SPUN informs the public and policymakers about the importance of fungi to planetary health and advocates for conservation of fungal networks. Through SPUN, Kiers collaborates with local researchers around the world to map underground fungal communities and explore how human activity and climate change are impacting fungal biodiversity, the ability of fungi to draw carbon into soil, and agricultural productivity. Kiers is solving a longstanding evolutionary puzzle about how and why organisms cooperate in nature and protecting plant-fungal symbioses—one of the most important and widespread mutualisms on Earth.
MacArthur Fellowship
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations. The MacArthur Fellowship is designed to provide recipients with the flexibility to pursue their own artistic, intellectual, and professional activities in the absence of specific obligations or reporting requirements. There are no limits on age or area of activity. Individuals cannot apply for this award; they must be nominated by individuals identified in a process of broad and diverse outreach.