Fantastical Fungi

I went to the most fantastic lecture last night with Fred Gillam and The Wild Side of Life on Mushrooms of Avebury. It was fascinating. Also as part of my Chekhov’s Gun blog post I am tidying up my ideas and remind myself of forgotten gems waiting patiently for their moment later in the story.

Ancient Landscapes continue to feel really important and hearing from Fred about the magic - and it really seems like magic - of the local landscapes around me in Lockeridge and Avebury with the evidence of complex life and fascination I had no idea was there. https://www.stonehengeandaveburywhs.org/assets/Stonehenge-and-Avebury-Evolving-Landscapes-2.pdf

LUCA- Last Universal Common Ancestor - we don’t know what LUCA was or what it looked like but we know we are all descended from LUCA.

Phylogenic Tree of Life diagram was very interesting and the common fungal ancestor was a direct descendent of LUCA. The Earth at that point was just rock with no soil, so how did the soil get there? Fungi formed a synthetic process with plant matter that resulted in the first humus.

400 million years ago there were mushroom forests with tree-like fungi 25 foot tall.

Japanese drilling below the sea bed mined mycelium that was 200 million years old. It was put in a petri dish and it bore fruit! The mushrooms were still viable…

4.3 million species of fungi - we know of fewer than two thirds of them, the remainder is known of via genetic code. Species are dying out faster than they can be discovered.

Ancient landscapes - fungi liberate nitrogen as nitrates and phosphorous as phosphates. Mature forestry has benefitical ratios of fungi : bacteria unlike intensely farmed soil, which is overwhelmed by bacteria.

Our bodies house half a pound in weight of living fungi. Soil cannot live without fungi. We cannot live without fungi.

Fungi can communicate and it is believed some species of fungi have around 50 commands they can respond to. Fungi are sexual with around 144 sexes! F

Fairy circles - steeped in mystery and myth. They are a consequence of fungi - in the middle of the circles is converging of shared DNA generated from mating spore producing cells. Ground Zero ‘Fairy’ circles produce fruit each year becoming larger and stronger each year. The circles come from fungi cultivating the grass and circles may be aged by their diametre - Avebury has circles believed to be over 1,000 years old.

Turkey Tail Mushrooms found in Avebury 

Conditions for these and many mushrooms here must be exactly right: it may be 20 years between fruitings. These are fairly common and used medicinally for cancer although modern evidence for efficacy is not established.

Nitrogen isotopes are common to many insects, funghi and plants, which create a life cycle of themselves. Fungi break down insects using enzymes into isotopes creating Nitrogen to feed the plants. The plants in turn create carbohydrates through photosynthesis that sustain the fungi so the life cycle may continue.

After the Chernobyl disaster, it was observed that there were a large number of dark coloured fungi appearing in the worst affected areas. It was established through experiments on rats that those rats injected with radiation died and those injected with 9 : 1 radiation to melanin pigment found in the dark mushrooms survived. Research suggests these mushrooms can protect against Gamma rays, raising the question of how this is possible on earth and whether this ability evolved from Space…

More foraging and identification courses coming up - note to self https://thewildsideoflife.co.uk/courses/