Fungi April 30-31 2012

Fungi are a major decomposer in ecosystems. Fungi return important elements such as such as carbon and nitrogen back to the environment.

Fungi are champion symbionts, an estimated 20,000 species of lichen involve partnerships with over 300 different genera of fungi. Our farming practices of irrigation and widespread use of pesticides and fertilisers impacts on soil biodiversity through loosening its structure, and affecting nitrogen-fixing bacteria and its mycorrhzal fungi which form symbiotic relationships with much native vegetation. Mycorrhizal (fungi) associations are vital for plant nutrition and are present in nearly every plant we know of, and they are, as Mary White writes: ‘increasingly recognised as regulators of biodiversity, as well as having beneficial side effects in stabilising soil.’

Ectomycorrhizas helps large trees get nitrogen through short lateral fungal roots, that rarely penetrate cell walls but form a dense net around the roots. A single fungi can work several trees and spread over many hectares.

These 3 bracket fungi were within a couple of feet of each other at Oyster Creek

Alan Rayner shows how fungi constantly vary their patterns of interconnecting through hyphea that spread through and absorb sources of nutrients:

The fungi are an entire kingdom of organisms: their total weight may well exceed the total weight of animals by several times and there are many more species of them than there are of plants! In many natural environments fungi provide the hidden energy-distributing infrastructure--like the communication pipelines and cables beneath a city--that connects the lives of plants and animals in countless and often surprising ways.” Rayner, A. D. M. Degrees of Freedom: Living in Dynamic Boundaries. London: Imperial College P, 1997, pvii.

We picked a load of porcini:

and saw a Mistletoe bird in Urunga cemetery.

The ant genera Atta and Acromyrmex use complex division of labour for farming fungi their staple diet. “These ants have the most complex social systems of all the social insects and that makes them the most complex socially of all animals, except for humans.” E O Wilson