Journal Entry 13

Fungi Day- 5/8
Weather: Warm- probably above 60 degrees out. Bright and sunny, but not hot.
Class today focused on fungi. We learned about fungi reproduction, function, and where they are found on campus. We began with the discussion of reproduction, which for fungi and their mushrooms, occurs through the spreading of spores. Spores are found in the gill structures of mushrooms, which open up with maturity to release spores. Spores come in many different colors and are a key identifying feature of different mushroom species, which are often difficult to distinguish between.
Testing the color of a mushroom’s spores is done through a process called a spore print. It is simply the use of a bowl or some other encapsulating apparatus to induce a moist environment for the mushroom, in which the mushroom will open its gills and drop spores down. However, because mushrooms naturally grow in moist climates that are conducive to their reproduction, often spores will be found immediately below where the mushrooms are found.
Mycelium is the root-like structure of fungi, which is responsible for the absorption of nutrients through the soil or other surface. This is accomplished through openings at the tips of the tendrils of mycelium called hyphae, which take in carbon, water, and minerals and convert these into energy through digestion.
There are several types of fungi that form on trees: soft/brown rot and white rot, among others. Soft/brown rot sap the nutrients from the tree’s cellulose, hemi-cellulose, and lignin to nurture themselves, as do white rot. However, white rot fungi are far more costly to their host, and eventually will fully absorb the essential and useful nutrients from the tree until it dies. Soft/brown rot has the same affect, but does not usually cause death and sustains for much longer.
We then followed a graduate student out on campus and looked at a variety of mushrooms growing on campus. One patch of agrocybe praecox were growing just alongside the sidewalk in large quantities. Mushroom such as these could belong to a single individual or could be multiple individuals in a colony. Because mushrooms are essentially the fruiting bodies of the fungi, these quantities vary, and can often only be determined by looking at the mycelia to determine separate individuals. The agrocybe praecox had chocolate brown spores, and some mushrooms were far more mature than others, even found within inches of each other. The varying maturity was determined not by size of the cap, which also varied greatly, but by the presence of a veil, a white film that covered the gills and prevented spore loss, but which would fall away from a mature mushroom to allow reproduction.
Other mushrooms we found on other parts of campus were the oyster mushroom and the turkey tail mushroom, traemetes versicolor, both of which were white rot types and found growing on a log. Button mushrooms were also found growing on a compost heap, and which are identical to the types of mushrooms that are found in grocery stores and called Portobello mushrooms, only less mature. Inky caps, possibly belonging to the genus copronoxis were also found growing in the woody groundcover. Some form of pink slime mold was found on a rock in the area as well, which was pretty gross to look at but provided a look at a very unique type of fungus.
The most stunning thing about this class was that there were so many types of fungi, and particularly that such a wide variety grew even just on campus. Also interesting was the fact that mushrooms were not the entire fungus, but merely the fruiting body of the fungus.

Posted on June 5, 2012 11:12 AM by keenan44