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 Bruce
Andre
What lies beneath
Whole worlds exist beneath the soil and behind the bark.
Networks of fine filaments called mycelia digest food, breaking
down organic matter. With enough food reserve, the mycelia will
produce fruiting bodies, in some cases, mushrooms. Under the right
conditions, they push above the soil or bark, mature, and release
spores, which develop into new fungi.
“Fungi have been involved in life’s process since the very
beginning,” says Rogers. If they hadn’t, nothing would decay, and
we’d be surrounded with dead matter, he says. The earliest plants,
and the organisms that ate them, needed some early version of fungi
to break down the dead matter. Over a billion years ago the fungi
followed the plants onto land, aiding them in absorbing nutrients
and using them for food.
There’s some evidence that the fungi enabled plants to evolve on
land, says Carris. They were present before vascular plants
evolved, and may have served as a type of primitive “root” for
early land plants.
Fungi evolved in various directions, resulting in an estimated
1.5 million fungal species. Some types live freely in nature and
reproduce as mushrooms, like Rogers’s morel. Others are yeasts,
molds, mildews, and parasites, including athlete’s foot. They
usually attach themselves to their food sources, absorbing
nutrients through their cell walls, and excreting enzymes to break
down organisms. Some are saprophytic, which means they decompose
dead organisms. Others are parasitic, infecting live plants and
animals, and harming their hosts. Mycorrhizal fungi attach to the
roots of plants, helping them pull nutrients and moisture from the
soil. Finally, endophytes help protect plants from other fungi,
infections, and predation.
Pathologists and mycologists like Rogers agree there is much
more to learn about the biology, safety, and ecology of fungi. What
makes them grow when and where they do? What benefits do they
provide the plants and other creatures that surround them? What are
their life cycles? How are they affected by alterations in the
environment, such as logging, fires, pollution, or global climate
change?
When it comes to fungi, most of us haven’t wanted to know, says
Rogers.
Many peoples, including the French, Italians, Slavs, and
Southeast Asians, embrace fungi and use them regularly in food and
medicine. Americans, though, have had an uneasy relationship with
them. For them they have been associated with mystery, the
supernatural, poison, darkness, and decay.
“People in the U.S. in general have a certain fear of fungi,”
says Rogers. “I think it goes back to our English heritage. We’re
more sensitive and suspicious than other cultures.”
In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the giant mushroom
contains magical powers, one side making Alice shrink, the other
making her grow huge. Emily Dickinson referred to the mushroom as
nature’s outcast face.
Fear, mostly unfounded, has pushed our palates and our curiosity
away from these organisms. But that’s starting to change,
especially as we sample the cuisines of other cultures and look to
eat locally produced foods. Wander into Pike Place Market and check
the corners of the produce stalls, and you’ll find caches of wild
mushrooms.
One Saturday last summer, morels were selling for $30 a pound.
Light, firm, a little like a dry sponge, they smelled of earth and
forest.
Fungi, like morels, can help a fire-damaged landscape recover.
They can also digest pollutants, breaking down such toxins as
pesticides, paints, diesel, and tar. They turn tainted soil into
fertile material to host future life. In his book, Mycelium
Running, mycologist Paul Stamets argues that fungi can rescue
habitats, enhance forest health, and make toxins inert. He also
points to mushrooms that can be used as antibiotics and agents for
treating cancer.
Yet only about 70,000 of 1.5 million species of fungi have been
described. And of those, we still have limited information about
what makes them grow when and where they do.
Now, with global climate change a major focus for research,
fungi are still being overlooked. Most investigations have focused
on ecosystem activities in the spring and summer. Events that take
place in autumn, including decomposition and decay, are only now
being examined, say Rogers and Carris.
But fungi are changing their behavior in response to global
warming along with the rest of nature. In a recent article
published in Science magazine, scientists in England
observed that mushrooms and fungi, across species, are maturing and
fruiting earlier and for a longer season. Decomposition, in
England’s forests, at least, is taking place more rapidly.
Scientists are just now trying to figure out what all this means,
says Carris.
As trees and other plants are stressed by changes in climate,
they will be more susceptible to fungi and diseases, says Rogers.
He expects fungi to be on the rise. In any case, when looking at
issues of the environment, it’s high time the fungi were
considered, he says.
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Continued
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A woman has a mysterious growth on her lung. A puppy suddenly
suffers liver failure. These two mysteries have a common suspect:
fungus. Both were the subjects of recent investigations undertaken
by Jack Rogers and Lori Carris.
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