Steven Bedard

This story is part of our special issue on the state of global conservation one year after the Trump administration enacted sweeping changes. Read the other stories at Conservation Enters a New Era.

Nestled amidst leaf litter and decaying stumps on forest floors around the world, the collared earthstar (Geastrum triplex) can be hard to spot—that is, until the mushroom’s bulbous core wheezes a fleeting puff of spores. As a member of a group of fungi called Gasteromycetes, or “stomach fungi,” the collared earthstar begins its life cycle as a hardened bulb of just a few centimeters, anchored underground by a network of tiny fungal threads, called mycelia.

As Raasay, a young border collie, leans over the edge of the kayak, it’s not a ball she’s sniffing out. Rather, she’s hunting down an ecological threat hidden beneath the surface. Her target: an invasive weed, known as common cordgrass (Spartina anglica), that has found its way into Beaufort Lake in southeastern Australia.