The discovery began with two citizen scientists and their truffle-hunting dogs. The truffles were found in Tennessee and Kentucky by Lois Martin and her dog, Monza, and Margaret Townsend and her dog, Luca. 

After their discovery, the truffles were sent to the Bonito Lab in the Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Science. One truffle, which now goes by the name Tuber canirevelatum, was an entirely new discovery that fascinated MSU researchers. The other, which has been named Tuber cumberlandense, was a previously known new species. 

After receiving the new samples, Alassane Sow, a recent graduate of environmental microbiology, worked alongside professor and mycologist Gregory Bonito, as well as other researchers, to extract the truffles' DNA. This DNA, as well as a computer program, then helped the scientists find out where each new species belonged on the phylogenetic or evolutionary tree, Sow said. 

"That way, we can compare what it looks like to other species, and then we can compare what its genetics are, and then we can accurately place it and have evidence that it's a new species," Sow said. 

From the discovery and classification of the new species onto the phylogenetic tree, scientists are able to continue their research to find out if the truffle has any value. There are a few different ways that scientists can discover what is interesting and valuable about the truffles. 

"Truffles are an ectomycorrhizal fungus, and that means they live in some symbiosis with plants or trees," Sow said. "So they'll go around mining nutrients in the soil and bring that back to the tree, and the tree will give them sugars in return."

Truffles are also essential to the life and vitality of forests. 

"Without ectomycorrhizal fungi, the trees won't grow. They'll be very short. It'll be like a little hobbit forest," Bonito said. “And so they've evolved together, and they need each other, and the truffles also need the animals to eat them.”

After animals sniff out and eat truffles, they defecate the spores around their habitats, Sow said. This allows for the continued growth of the fungi. 

The symbiotic relationship between the truffles and their surrounding environment is not the only one that exists in this field. In order for scientists like Sow and Bonito to characterize these truffles, they must work with citizen scientists who are in turn working alongside their truffle-hunting dogs. Bonito said that this relationship between scientists and people in the field has always been an important part of taxonomy.

"In the old days, they would send collections to the New York botanic gardens or other places where folks had that expertise," Bonito said. "And a lot of times there would be correspondence between the scientists and the folks in the field who would be finding cool things … That's an old tradition, and it's still current and active and important."

One thing that caught the scientists’ attention in these new discoveries was the aroma of Tuber canirevalatum. The Bonito Lab enlisted the help of Randy Beaudry, a professor in the Department of Horticulture, to characterize the aroma and discover the volatile compounds that gave this particular truffle its scent. 

"Smell actually contributes probably about 80% of what we appreciate about a particular food, whether it's french fries, hamburgers or an apple," Beaudry said. "So it's really important, and it's one of the reasons that we treasure truffles so much, because of their aroma constituents."

The importance of finding the compounds behind the aroma of truffles lies behind the value and sale of truffles. 

"We could have just left that saying it smells savory, it smells garlicky, right?" Sow said. "But if we actually list out these compounds and people have a better idea of what it actually smells like, then they can relate it to these known, expensive truffles and make that connection themselves."

Many truffles have value in the culinary world. When you order truffle fries at a restaurant or get a sauce made with truffle from the grocery store, those products come from the fungi found in the ground. Most of these truffles, however, are found in countries like Spain, Italy and France, Sow said. 

What excites Sow most about finding these truffle species and realizing the value in their aroma, is the prospect of more valuable truffles being found and cultivated outside of Europe. 

"Over the last decade or so, we're slowly starting to find more and more species in North America that are actually edible and interesting, flavor-wise, and worth growing," Sow said. "So over time, hopefully we'd like to see Tuber cumberlandense being cultivated. And if we can find Tuber canirevalatum again, we'd be really interested in cultivating that too."