Photo Credit: British WildFlowers - Alastair Graham
By Tom Cervone, Ph.D. and Michael Cervone, B.S.
Our Planet Earth
Author’s note: This website encourages and informs all people to act with “Care for Our Common Home.”
Introduction
To answer this question, we must first define what is living. Organisms are alive if they share seven characteristics. They are:
- respond to the environment
- grow and change
- reproduce
- metabolize and breathe
- maintain homeostasis
- comprised of cells; and
- can pass traits on to offspring.
Are fungi alive? Yes, fungi are living organisms and belong to their own kingdom, separate from plants and animals. They absorb nutrients and play a critical role in decomposition. Fungi are not plants or animals since they consist of mycelium, which is made of hyphae, and they have cell walls made of chitin. They grow and live by secreting digestive enzymes to break down materials, such as dead trees or soil nutrients. A single fungus colony of Armillaria solidipes (Armillaria ostoynae) in the Oregon Blue Mountains is reported to be the largest living organism on earth and can span four square miles and be thousands of years old.
Fungi range from single-celled yeasts to multicellular mushrooms. Mushrooms are considered to be the fruiting or reproductive parts of the organism that you see on the surface. Underground, they have an underlying network of mycelium or hyphae. Some fungi are toxic to eat, and some can cause illness.
So why are we discussing fungi, and why are they so important? Because they are irreplaceable in soil biodiversity, and they, along with trees and phytoplankton in the ocean, can help us address global challenges, including climate change and hunger. Fungi are closely connected with vegetation and the carbon nutrient cycling. As a result, they are important for soil health and carbon sequestration (removal of CO 2 from the atmosphere), among other ecosystem functions. What is so fascinating is that they are sustainable. When made into a commercial product that replaces plastic, the fungal product can, under the right conditions, decompose in about 45 days and be reused. We can’t do this with plastics, which are causing so many problems for our environment and health. Some examples of what fungi can do are:
- Decompose and cycle/recycle nutrients for plants to grow and help in nitrogen fixation and phosphorus mobilization.
- Digest dead plant material and help regulate the climate. Together, plants and fungi can remove CO 2 from the atmosphere, which improves soil fertility and can help reduce excess carbon from human activities such as driving cars, flying in airplanes, and more. A study (https:/peerj.com/preprints/789v1/) shows that biodiverse soils are able to capture up to 10 tons of CO 2 per hectare per year.
- Be eaten by animals for nutrients to obtain vitamins, fiber, and minerals such as potassium, phosphorus, calcium, and even some protein.
- Be grown on agricultural waste in light or dark environments with some moisture, incorporating nutrients from the waste.
- Be used for its medicinal properties to help prevent diseases and boost our immune system.
- Degrade some pollutants from the environment, such as plastics, other petroleum-based products, pharmaceuticals, oil, and more.
- Be used in ecosystem restoration through reforestation of degraded soils.
- Be used as pest control, especially against arthropods and nematodes.
- Be used as mycelium-based products to replace unsustainable plastics, synthetics, and animal-based products. Examples include packaging, clothes, shoes, sustainable leather, skincare products, and others.
For more information about fungal mycelium products, please see Mylo, Ecovative Design. MycoWorks, Bolt Threads, Mogu, Mycolever, Meati Foods, Ecovactive (MyBacon), Yumane Foods, HIRO Technologies, Michroma, Fungi Perfecti, AgroSustain Sarf, and Reforestation Technologies International.
What Can You Do?
Keep forests intact, and stop land conversions to agriculture, soil degradation, or soils receiving salt. Please read Soil Biodiversity: Contributions and Threats for more ways you can help.
YouTube on the Importance of Fungi:
Quote:
“A tree’s most important means of staying connected to other trees is a “wood wide web” of soil fungi that connects vegetation in an intimate network that allows the sharing of an enormous amount of information and goods.”― Tim Flannery, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World
Tom Cervone, PhD, is the founder, and Michael Cervone, B.S., is the programmer and designer of the “Our Planet Earth” website. We also thank Sister Maureen Houlihan, D.C., Daughters of Charity, Nicole Cervone- Gish, Ed., M.S., and others for their earlier help in developing this website.
Comments may be directed to ourplanetearth.eco@gmail.com Thank you!