Professor Richard Fortey joins Professor Frances Ashcroft to discuss Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake and Wilding by Isabella Tree. Series 2 Episode 8Entangled Life is fascinating journey into the world of fungi - what they are, how they evolved, their hyphal networks below the ground, their mycorrhizal relationships with plants, their symbiotic interactions with algae in lichens, and the mind-altering chemicals they make. Wilding describes how the switch from intensive farming to minimal intervention led to a spectacular return of wildlife on the Knepp estate in Sussex, including rare species such as turtle doves, nightingales and purple emperor butterflies.

Richard Fortey is a fellow of the both Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature. He is the author of numerous popular science books and has presented many radio and TV programmes on natural history. His research has focussed on trilobites but he also has a passion for fungi. His most recent book is Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind.

Websiteshttps://royalsociety.org/people/richard-fortey-11450/https://www.merlinsheldrake.com/https://knepp.co.uk/