A good boy named Rye is using his elite sniffing abilities to unearth rare and undiscovered truffles while earning himself plenty of tennis ball tosses.
Science profiled the prolific golden retriever hailing out of the Pacific Northwest and shared how he and scientists are teaming up to learn more about the critical fungi.
If you've seen the movie Pig, starring Nicolas Cage, you are probably somewhat aware of Oregon white truffles and Oregon black truffles. Dogs and pigs are commonly trained to sniff out the tasty delicacies for their owners.
Rye takes on a different challenge, finding non-culinary truffles at an astounding rate. His owner Heather Dawson, a biology Ph.D. student at the University of Oregon, says the pup has discovered thousands of different truffles from over 50 genera, per Science.
While scientists know truffles are important due to their close relationships with trees and plants, they are poorly understood due to the limitations of conventional techniques. Mycologist Ben Lemmond learned the hard way after looking for different species on the East Coast. Lemmond acknowledged to Science that the work using a rake and leaf litter was "96% not finding truffles."
When Lemmond teamed up with Dawson and Rye, his fortunes changed, and he made a key discovery of Oregon black truffles attached to Douglas firs.
"It's so humbling to work with a dog and realize how bad you are finding truffles," Lemmond admitted. Like Lemmond's find, Rye's truffle discoveries not only help reveal new varieties of truffles and add locations for them, but they also enhance our knowledge of them. There are fears that these truffle species are vulnerable to extinction.
Wildfires are a specific threat, and Dawson and her sister, Hilary, published a paper asserting that the truffles appear to vanish entirely from fir-dominant forests years after a fire. Considering the rise of wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, that connection is concerning.
The Dawsons' research indicates that truffles have a mutually beneficial relationship with trees underground. Oak trees and their surrounding truffles seem to be more resilient, according to preliminary research. That could be important for forest management and acts like prescribed burns.
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Mowing the lawn 🏡 Dogs are increasingly playing a starring role in all sorts of efforts with scientists. They've proven adept at sniffing out destructive invasive species like spotted lanternflies and pests like possums. They've also been deployed to help in wild animal conservation by tracking poachers and to aid in uncovering methane leaks.
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As Rye helps the team of scientists learn more about truffles, they hope his discoveries can illuminate which ones are endangered, where they can be found, and how they can be protected. Considering the challenges truffles are facing from wildfires, habitat loss, and human activity, that could be a timely task.
"Our world is changing rapidly before our eyes," Heather Dawson told Science. "We're losing diversity as we speak."
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