2026 Tyler Prize Laureate
Dr. Toby Kiers is an evolutionary biologist and Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam whose research has fundamentally advanced understanding of the living systems beneath our feet.
Awarded the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, she is recognised for revealing the critical role of underground ecosystems in sustaining biodiversity, ecosystem resilience, and planetary health and for translating scientific discovery into global environmental action.
Dr. Kiers is also the co-founder of the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), a global initiative dedicated to mapping, protecting, and advocating for underground biodiversity, and ensuring that life beneath our feet is recognised in conservation and climate policy.
Revealing the Underground Web of Life
Dr. Kiers’ research focuses on mycorrhizal fungi: vast underground networks of microscopic threads that link plant roots together, allowing plants to exchange nutrients, water, and carbon, store carbon in soils, and cooperate across entire ecosystems. Often described as the “wood wide web,” these networks are fundamental to plant health, biodiversity, and ecosystem resilience, yet remain largely invisible and under-protected.
Through innovative experiments, high-resolution imaging, DNA sequencing, and global field research, Kiers has shown how fungal networks stabilise ecosystems and how disruptions to soil systems can accelerate biodiversity loss, ecosystem decline, and climate vulnerability. Her work has also revealed the scale of these systems’ influence: plants allocate an estimated 13 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year to mycorrhizal fungi, underscoring their importance in global climate regulation.
A landmark 2011 Science paper introduced the concept of biological markets in microbes, demonstrating how plants and fungi exchange nutrients through reciprocal cooperation, reshaping understanding of how collaboration operates in nature.
From Discovery to Protection
Beyond advancing fundamental science, Dr. Kiers is committed to ensuring that underground biodiversity is recognised and protected in conservation policy and practice.
She is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), an international organisation dedicated to mapping and safeguarding mycorrhizal fungal biodiversity worldwide. SPUN brings together scientists, Indigenous communities, policymakers, artists, and technologists to highlight the importance of underground ecosystems and advocate for their inclusion in global conservation strategies.
Together with her team, she helped create the world’s first global Underground Atlas, a high-resolution digital map of mycorrhizal fungal diversity that enables scientists, policymakers, and conservation practitioners to identify critical underground ecosystems and prioritise protection efforts.
Science, Communication, and Public Engagement
Dr. Kiers is widely recognised for her ability to communicate complex science in compelling and accessible ways. Through lectures, publications, media engagement, and interdisciplinary collaborations, she has played a key role in bringing soils and fungi into public, cultural, and policy conversations.
Her leadership bridges scientific scholarship with public impact, inspiring new approaches to ecosystem restoration, biodiversity protection, and climate solutions and elevating a long-overlooked biological kingdom to its rightful place in global environmental thinking.