Let's Get Fungi

In our rainy part of the world, mushrooms pop up all over our forests and gardens. Mushrooms are parts of fungi, and they look like plants but are actually more closely related to humans than plants! There are estimated to be millions of types of fungi, but only a small percentage of them have been identified so far. There are many types of fungi including lichen, molds, yeasts (what we use to make bread), mushroom producing fungi, and non-mushroom producing fungi.

The mushrooms that we know and love are actually just one small part of a fungus. You can think of them like the fruit of the fungi. They grow to disperse their spores (similar to seeds), and then disappear once that task is done, leaving the main body of the fungus, the mycelium (my-C-lee-um), hidden underground to continue to grow.

Let's look at all the parts of a mushroom producing fungus below.

The Gifts of Fungi

How do fungi help us?

Fungi do so many amazing things including...

Communication

They also play a major role in communication

Decomposers

One of the biggest role fungi play in the forest is breaking down trees, leaves, and other matter and returning those nutrients to the soil. Fungi can break down thick cell walls made of lignin in trees, something that few creatures are able to do. Fungi absorb lignin and break it down into simple forms that other creatures in the soil can use. Fungi return the nutrients to the soil like Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium.

Mycoremediation (my-co-rem-E-D-A-shun)

Because fungi are so good at breaking down complex compounds, some types of fungi are also able to eat harmful contaminants in our environment and transform toxins into less toxic compounds.

Removing Plastic Pollutants with White-Rot Fungusle

The amount of plastic waste that we have on Earth is immense and steadily growing. Researchers have found a type of white-rot fungus called Phanerochaete chrysosporium that can decompose plastics, breaking down the toxic parts of the plastic into a bio-matter that can be safely disposed of.

Photo: Officina Corpuscoli

Cleaning Up Oil-Contaminated Soil

Oil is notoriously hard to separate and clean up from contaminated soils. Researchers have found that Oyster mushrooms in particular are great at breaking down petroleum (oil) waste in soil. Oyster mushrooms produce a large amount of mycelium compared to other species, which gives it an increased surface area that can take in more toxins from the soil. The fungus is able to absorb the oil from the soil and break it down into less toxic compounds. This brings back a thriving ecosystem to a once contaminated area.

Clearing Wildfire Ash from Water Sources

After a wildfire, the ash left coating the floor is a big problem as the toxic compounds in the ash can contaminate rivers and drinking water. Researchers have found that putting hay bales full of oyster mushroom mycelium in the nearby streams and rivers after a wildfire, these toxins are able to be filtered out and broken down by the fungi before they can reach our drinking water downstream.