A Magical Mycology Tapestry

Posted by Jeff on Jul 5, 2016 @ 7:45 am in Conservation | 0 comments | Last modified: July 3, 2016

Mushrooms weave a network of ecology, medicine, food, and farming.

Encountering a mushroom in the forest provides a glimpse to a web that is largely unseen, underground. The mushroom is a fruiting body that emerges from a network of branching mycelium, a cellular structure interwoven in soil. This mass thrives by connecting to other organisms, especially the roots of trees and plants.

The Appalachian mountains boast a wide diversity of fungi, the collective term for mushroom and mycelium. Fungi reach their highest diversity in the southern part of the mountain range, according to the Highlander Biological Center, and scientists estimate that only 2,300 of as many as 20,000 species have been identified there.

Often, a mushroom patch represents a single organism. The subterranean net of mycelium can be large and long-lived, and “the mushrooms are just ephemeral, passing creatures,” says Dr. John Walker, a mycology professor at Appalachian State University. Walker studies fungi and their ecological relationship to roots.

Nearly 90 percent of plants form a special relationship to fungi in natural areas. One type of fungi, called mycorrhizae, attach to plant roots, providing food and water to the plants and receiving sugars in return. This symbiosis connects an ecosystem’s extensive root and mycelium networks, and it can actually affect plant ecology in a habitat, such as a rhododendron thicket.

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