Journal Entry 14

5/08/12

Fungi!

Location: We were inside at the beginning of class for a brief lecture and then walked around outside to see the fungi around campus.

Weather: Warm. It was a sunny day with very few clouds, probably only 10% cloud cover. This, however was not ideal given that we were looking for fungi which favors wetter conditions.

Puget Sound and the Cascades are probably good places for fungi considering how wet it usually is and fairly cool.

The commitment for fungi is to make lots of spores and most fungi are single celled. Some breed asexually while other breed sexually. They are very important in nature and ecosystems and have an important function. They are decomposers because they break down dead organic materials. The decomposition in natural systems is difficult, however, bacteria, fungi, worms, and insects can decompose. Fungi in particular can decompose woody materials such as dead trees, logs, and any type of wood. Some of the important parts of wood are lignin, cellulose, hemulose, and pectin. The latter is soft and can be broken down. These are soft rots. The previous list is a big part of the cell walls of plants. White rot fungi have the ability to strip away the lignin and get to the carbon. They are also good at breaking down all the components and are the main organisms that break down wood ecosystems. Most fungi grow at the apex and they have hyphae and mycillean. While humans digest things, fungi digest them by ejecting enzymes that break down the wood.

Thinking about the environment fungi generally like to grow in and knowing that they are important for breaking down wood in the ecosystem, I wonder how trees and wood in dry places (such as beaches in California and palm tree, or deserts with bushes) is broken down. I wonder if there are fungi that can survive those conditions to break down those woody materials.

Outside by UW farms: There was a tree that was almost completely hollow and dying because of the fungi was eating away at it. The artist conk was eating a hole in the tree! The problem with fungal disease are that they can effect nectar which affects bees and flowers negatively. We found some oyster mushrooms which are white rot mushrooms that favor angiosperm trees. They can grow on just about anything that had carbon including woodchips. We also found some turkey tail (white rot) that likes conifer trees. Also found were many inky cap mushrooms among many others.

Posted on June 5, 2012 07:06 AM by lmiyamoto