What is a Fungus?

Hallelujah! It is Sunday! This is the last day before you go back to work. You are going to enjoy it the right way by watching TV and enjoying a good amount of junk food, because after all this is one of your cheat days.  Hmmm, but what to eat? Maybe you are feeling ambitious today, so you decide to make some pizza. Ah! But the pizza dough needs yeast and you don’t have any.  How about some crackers with cheese? Well, the cheese in your fridge has some blue fuzz growing on it, and that isn’t appetizing. Let’s go back to your first choice, but this time you decide to have your pizza delivered. Alright, now that your pepperoni and mushroom pizza arrived, it is time for some TV. You decide to watch a certain show that features fungi in an apocalyptic setting. As you munch on your pizza and watch the drama unfold, you, understandably, become turned off by the mushrooms and slowly pick them off your pizza.  Mushrooms, yeast, mold, and zombie fungi? You had a lot of fungal encounters today, so it makes you question, “What is a fungus?” Let’s find out more about that fungus among us.

It’s a plant! It’s an animal! No, fungi are organisms that belong in their own category. A fungus doesn’t make its own food like a plant, and it doesn’t eat its food like an animal. Fungi obtain their food in many different ways, but generally the nutrients are absorbed by their mycelia which is like a tentacle made of string-like hyphae. Symbiotic fungi cooperate with plants to get food.  The fungi hyphae absorb carbohydrates from the plant’s roots, and the plant relies on the fungi hyphae to reach further than the roots to absorb and share critical minerals. Saprophytic fungi get their food by breaking down dead organisms. The saprophytic method of obtaining food gives fungi the reputation of being good recyclers. Ordinarily, dead animals and plants take a long time to decay, but fungi can speed this process up and make new nutrients for the living.

The final way a fungus can obtain its food is through a parasitic relationship. The parasitic fungus invades the plant or animal and absorbs the food without giving anything back to its host.

Fungi don’t give birth to other fungi or produce seeds to grow new fungi. Fungi release millions of tiny spores to spread and reproduce. A mushroom is actually the part of the fungus that releases spores. The rest of the fungus is hidden underground and is made of a network of root-like mycelia. One fungus in particular gets really aggressive in its approach to reproduction.  The Ophiocordyceps fungi infect ants and turn them into puppets. After the fungus takes over, it directs the ant to a strategic location, either high up into a tree or near other ants. Once in position, the fungus kills the ant and then triggers the release of spores so that other ants can get infected.

If you have been watching a lot of TV lately, you might be concerned about Ophiocordyceps and what it might do to us humans. I am here to reassure you that you won’t be infected by a hyper aggressive, puppet master fungus… At least, not in the immediate future. This fungus has evolved with this particular ant over an incredibly long period of time. But who knows what a fungus and a million years can do to a human. The result might not be fun at all.

By Mark Smith