Between slime molds using reinforcement learning [1], and plants using a fungal "internet" to communicate[2], fungi are interesting models for a lot of network concepts.
They are fascinating organisms, and the more we learn about them the wilder it gets. Radiolab did an episode that talks about some of the things they do. They present evidence that the fungal networks are what make forests possible, and that fungi are not simply passive participants: in woodlands that are affected by global warming, the fungi send nutrients from dying trees that are not well-suited to a changing climate to different species which are better equipped to survive the new temperatures instead of what they normally do, which is to share the nutrients with young trees of the same species. They essentially farm the plants whose nutrients they rely on.
Paul Stamets, mentioned briefly in your second linked article, has been doing research into their antimicrobial and antiviral properties. A handful of soil has hyphae that are only one cell wide, but something in the neighborhood of miles long, so they are constantly being attacked by any number of organisms and have developed advanced countermeasures that we can take advantage of to fight the maladies that plague us. There are treatments available in Japan for cancer, called PSK and PSP, which are essentially extracts from the Turkey Tail mushroom. He has performed studies that show promise in combating colony collapse disorder in bees with extracts from the garden giant fungus, which he discovered by watching bees congregate to lick the mycelium.
Their networking concepts have been refined over millions of years, and are undoubtedly worthwhile to study, but it seems that we are only beginning to scratch the surface of what we can learn from fungi.
I stumbled upon Paul Stamets on Joe Rogan's podcast, which made a nice introduction to the world of funghi- absolutely fascinating and exciting to think of what else we may discover in this field in the coming years!
For anyone interested- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ
Yes it’s a good interview. Though it got very weird for a minute when he was asked about the health issues with button mushrooms and refused to answer because he said it put his life in danger. I wanna know what that’s all about!
I just recently read a great book called The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben [1] that touches on the subject of a social network among trees via a fungal network known as the "Wood Wide Web" [2].
Came here to post the same. While the book isn't super scientific and lacks certain depth if you already know some things about nature/biology/ecosystems/..., I found it extremely pleasant to read. And it also contains some real 'whaaaat? I had no clue' moments. It's now my go-to book recommendation for anyone who likes e.g. walking in nature but has not much further knowledge of it. And the few people I know who did read it all came back with the same sentiment: 'wow, I have been strolling around in forests half my life but I didn't know half of the things mentioned in this book'.
Pardon my double post, but it’s worth mentioning that the Star Trek: Discovery people chose to name a character after real-life mycologist Paul Stamets. Naming the character after the person they got a bunch of ideas from is an unusual step for a TV series, and I have to wonder if part of their decision to do so is in the service of spreading not only his ideas but the results of his research, which shows that fungi are a branch of life that ought to be studied much more closely than the scientific community has done in the past. The more people we have looking at them the better!
For visual appeal and as a potential tourist destination, Pando wins hands down (especially lovely in autumn). But I guess as a food supply, the fungus wins.
It doesn't sound from the article like they've shown that the fungus is connected, does it? Rather, they just got evidence that infections from genetically identical funguses were ~2 km apart, and that genetically identical funguses generally fuse together if they mechanically grow into each other.
Wikipedia does in fact say that the Holocene Extinction is an ongoing event. And really, how very cool and interesting that something our ancestors hunted to extinction will be resurrected and eaten once more!
We can eat the fruiting bodies, the "mushrooms" which the fungus sends up above the surface of the soil for reproductive purposes. Evidently they smell bad raw, but when you cook them they're delicious.
> Biologists have long debated what constitutes an individual organism. The record-breaking A. solidipes clonal colony passes the test based on a definition of being made up of genetically identical cells that can communicate, and that have a common purpose or can at least coordinate themselves.
From the article, I'm unclear -- are all the cells physically connected to each other, or are they 1,000's of fruiting bodies which are genetically identical and can communicate somehow but aren't all actually connected to each other within the trees and among them, underground? (Even if some are connected?)
Because if it's the latter, it doesn't feel like a single organism to me, any more than communicating and coordinating with an identical twin would make two people into one.
Even the 'identical twins' are not 100% genetically identical[0] and they can't 'fuse' with each other like these fungi are and can. Humans also can't asexually produce more of their own clones to cooperate with while these fungi apparently can do both asexual and sexual reproduction with asexual one being more common. Even if we could then our clones have their own central nervous system and aren't enslaved by their genes to do the same as us and 'fuse' and cooperate with us.
On the other hand, common bananas are sterile clones[1] but they are more 'separate' from each other and not 'fused' in any way (I guess? I have no idea) then these bunches of fungus... But we are all over the Biological Kingdoms (Animalia, Fungi, Plantae), methods of reproduction, human intervention, 'fusing' and so on by now.
I'm not a biologist but I had very high level biology class with a really good (and demanding..) retired biologist as the teacher and I still remember how WTF this all gets (the entire Protista Kingdom which is just a bag of stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere and varies a lot internally, the pseudo-life of viruses, the scyphozoan jellyfish life cycle, concept of biological immortality, etc.). Pluto planet debacle is nothing and a 100% clear cut case with 0 controversy in comparison to this.
"The record-breaking A. solidipes clonal colony passes the test based on a definition of being made up of genetically identical cells that can communicate, and that have a common purpose or can at least coordinate themselves."
As the article hints, the concept of an individual is a very slippery thing in filamentous fungi. A single hyphal network can contain genetic material from more than two parental spores, and while a bi-nucleate condition is typical (in a "stable dikaryon"), genetically different nuclei can cohabit different regions of the same mycelium at different times, and even established nucleotypes can be completely displaced by newly-fusing types. This all leads to quite different genetic situations from those that delimit individuals in the usual sense.
In this study, somatic compatibility of isolates (their readiness to fuse into a single mycelium) seems to have been interpreted as an indication of clonality – that the isolates are completely genetically identical. (At least it was by the BBC; the abstract of the linked paper, which is all I read of it, is vague on this point.) That would make the determination that this is a single individual fungus rather unassailable. But it's not clear to me at all that we can assume things are so simple.
I wish we weren't confined to our local group. Imagine being able to go faster than light and explore all the planets with unique wonders like this. Even if we only found deadly flora, it would still be beautiful.
How many galaxies have the equivalent of fungus? All of them?
The most provocative answer is "one." But for us, it will always be true.
We are more confined than to The Local Group[1]. Andromeda, the closest galaxy to us is in The Local Group and is 2.5 million light years away.
We are confined to our galaxy. In fact, we are confined to a small region of our galaxy. It's 100,000 light years wide. Without faster than light travel, very little is accessible to us.
[1] "The Local Group" is the name of a cluster of galaxies which are gravitationally bound to each other. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is in that cluster. When all other galaxies drift away from us in billions of years, the local group will be the only thing visible to us.
HeLa would fail the latter portion of the definition provided in the article:
> The record-breaking A. solidipes clonal colony passes the test based on a definition of being made up of genetically identical cells that can communicate, and that have a common purpose or can at least coordinate themselves.
[1]https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/12/the-brai...
[2]http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141111-plants-have-a-hidden...