Fascinating fungi
An underlying purpose of this website is to emphasise the broad importance of fungi to humans and the economy. Every hour of our day depends on the activities of fungi. The feature which has figured most in our decision to write on this topic is that although fungi comprise what is arguably the most crucial Kingdom of organisms on the planet, these organisms are often bypassed and ignored by the majority of biologists.
We use the word ‘crucial’ in the previous sentence because molecular phylogenies place animals and fungi together at the root of evolutionary trees. It is likely that the first eukaryotes would have been recognised as ‘fungal in nature’ by features presently associated with that Kingdom. So in a sense, those primitive ‘fungi’ effectively invented the lifestyle of so-called higher organisms.
Fungi remain crucial to life on Earth because animal life depends on plant life for continued existence and plants depend on fungi (over 95% of terrestrial plants require fungal infection of their roots by mycorrhizas for adequate root function). The number of fungal species has been conservatively put at 1.5 million, though the true number may be much higher than this.
Among this number is included the largest organism on Earth; one individual mycelium of Armillaria gallica covering some 8.9 km2 in the Malheur National Forest, Oregon. Fungi also include some of the most rapidly-moving organisms on Earth, because when some fungal spores are discharged they can be subjected to forces of acceleration several thousand times greater than that experienced by astronauts during the launch of the Space Shuttle!
Fungi also provide an essential service to the planet by being responsible for the majority of the biomass recycling, particularly the decomposition of dead plants. Saprotrophic degradation is the characteristic lifestyle of the majority of fungi, and without this activity we would be buried under dead plant litter.
Fungi provide us with a huge number of chemicals that are essential to the continued healthy life of so many people, from penicillin to statins, via cyclosporine to the ergotamines used to induce labour and ease migraine pain.
However the most important aspect of fungi is their ability to degrade substances, and recycle the nutrients inside them back into the ecosystem. Without wood rotting fungi these nutrients would otherwise be lost.
The full story about fungi can be found in the new textbook 21st Century Guidebook to Fungi by David Moore, Geoffrey D. Robson & Anthony P.J. Trinci. Published 2011 by Cambridge University Press: ISBN: 9780521186957. URL: ttp://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item6026594/?site_locale=en_GB. View Amazon page.
Updated December 15, 2016
