The Humongous Fungus

Intro

Hidden in darkness, there exists a vast underground network of plants and fungi that made life on land possible.

A network so ancient, sophisticated, and even elusive that pioneered the rise of life on land.

This got me intrigued that I started my quest to learn as much as I possibly could about it.

According to research, it seems that this ancient network is been around a lot longer than humanity, and will probably outlive us by far. This is due to the resilient nature of fungi.

There is even an experiment done by NASA that lichen (symbiosis of algae and fungi) can survive the vacuum of space!

In order to understand the resilient nature of fungi, we have to go far back in history.

Ancient History

To find out more about the ancient history of this underground network, we have to dive deep into the rabbit hole. After waking up from an ice age approximately 1000 million years ago, the earth started to warm up and slowly retract the icy glaciers and frozen lakes. In this period the landmass became visible and was concentrated into a supercontinent. In this era, the surface of the earth was vastly different than it is today. This supercontinent was a huge landmass that consisted almost exclusively of rock formations, created by high volcanic activity.

This barren landscape didn’t give many possibilities for other organisms and plants to grow and evolve. Until the fungi changed all of this and paved the way to create the first soil. Given enough time and with the help of erosion, terrestrial fungi can survive by weakening and piercing through rocks to get minerals and eventually form fertile soil that plants can sink their roots into. They are literally carving out an existence.

Approximately 500 million years ago the first species of algae migrated from the ocean to start a new type of life on land. At first, single-celled algae were able to thrive in shallow water or tidal zones of the ocean, with plenty of water and light and no animals keen on eating them, young algae flourished.

This new type of life on land was quickly joined by primitive fungi that were not able to synthesize nutrients on their own, but could feed off what remained of dead weeds. Over the next roughly 100 million years they formed a symbiosis between algae and fungi and colored the land green. This symbiotic relationship gave way for lichen to evolve and was the tip of the spear in exploring great expanses of new territory. From then on forward, plants slowly but surely made their way further onto land and away from the ocean.

Because of this mutually beneficial relationship between fungi and algae, symbiosis created the starting point where more complex plants started to evolve on land over time.

After some time, a giant colossus rose upon the surface of the land that feasted on dead material.  This mighty land-dwelling giant is a genus of fossil fungi and is referred to as Prototaxites. Evidence suggests that they grew up to 1 meter wide and 8 meters tall, this might have been in order to spread spores more effectively. Alternatively, if prototaxites contained photosynthetic structures, the height would have increased light capture. This height made them the largest terrestrial organism of its time, towering over the surrounding vegetation.

There is evidence of animals inhabiting prototaxites, mazes of tubes have been found within some specimens, with the fungus regrowing to fill in the gaps. This leads to speculation that the organism’s extinction may have been caused by such activity.

What is it

Mostly unseen by the human eye, and maybe even forgotten in a sense.

There exists an immortal network of plants and fungi that made life on earth what it is today. Constantly searching to make new connections in an ever-expanding network.

A complex network that can communicate, exchange nutrients, and make or break nearby organisms. These relationships are mostly symbiotic, and therefore largely based upon cooperation, but can also be parasitic.

I’m referring to the mycorrhizal network, the word “mycorrhiza” comes from the Greek words “mykes” which means “fungus” and “rhiza” means “root”, so mycorrhizae are literally “fungus-roots.”

The network is made of countless hyphae (a long, branching, filamentous structure of a fungus) that bind themselves to plant roots, and can reach many kilometers in length.

These hyphae are collectively called mycelium and are referred to as the “wood wide web” since they share commonalities as opposed to the “world wide web” that is created by human communities.

Actually, these mycelium networks are one of the largest natural living ecosystems that are known to humanity. An estimated +80% of all plants use the mycelium network to their benefit.

As humans, we are very dependent on fungi but are mostly oblivious to them. Without them, we would not have bread, beer, antibiotics, and mushrooms (including the psychedelic ones).

Fungi are the great decomposers of our planet, they complete the life cycle by feasting on dead material. If we didn’t have fungi we would be piling up dead and decaying material.

Fungi have a kingdom of their own. They are actually more closely related to animals and humans than to plants. But consuming food they do very differently, fungi put their bodies in their food as opposed to animals and humans putting their food in their bodies.

How does it work

It starts with the colonization of plant roots by fungi. These numerous specialized structures (hyphae) of fungi bind to the roots of different species of plants and trees. Increasing the surface area of roots results in more absorption and dispersal of nutrients.

The merging of plant roots and fungi is done in 2 distinctive ways. There are ectomycorrhiza fungi, where the hyphae do not penetrate the cell walls of the roots and the other type is endomycorrhizal fungi, where the hyphae penetrate the cell walls and pierce the cell membrane.

These 2 types are categorized as the main types but have more subclasses amongst each type, but this is the clearest way to differentiate them.  

The network connects individual plants and fungi together and transfers water, carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen, and other nutrients and minerals between participants. Bringing these kingdoms together in an ever-evolving network.

Plants provide carbon-rich sugars made through photosynthesis for the fungi, and in return, they get the nutrients they need to survive, such as phosphorus and nitrogen that are extracted by the fungi in the soil.

Depending on the environment, the formation and nature of these networks are context-dependent and can be influenced by factors such as soil fertility, resource availability, types, and seasonal variation.

A common example is the transfer of carbon from plants with leaves located in high-light conditions in the forest canopy, to plants located in the more shady places where light availability limits photosynthesis.

These bigger and older trees referred to as hub trees or mother trees are able to extract more resources than they need, and use the mycelium network to provide their shaded seedlings and younger trees resources for a better chance of survival. Even the trees that are sick or dying may dump their last remaining resources into the network, so that they become available for more healthy neighbors.

This is a beautiful example of ensuring the survival of the ecosystem and that cooperation actually results in prosperity. It invites the idea of seeing a forest as a large superorganism rather than just individual plants or trees.

Communication

There is some debate within the scientific community about which of the processes can be described as communication. Communication is usually defined as an exchange of information.

From the perspective of humans, communication is usually expressed in words or body language.

In the kingdom of nature, the term biological communication is used for how the behavioral change in an organism is affected by the transfer of information to both sender and receiver.

The sender can send signals to the receiver, and in turn, the receiver can make adaptations according to the information that came from the sender’s environment.

These signals are a result of an evolved state of the sender that warns and shares information that can induce changes in the receiver. This information can be biochemical, electrical, or can involve nutrient transfer, it has been suggested that the term infochemical should be used for chemical substances which can travel from one organism to another and induce changes.

This underground communication between plants and fungi is not yet fully understood. Actually, we haven’t even scratched the surface. But scientists have discovered that some species of plants can send information to their neighbors to arm themselves against pathogens and raise their defenses in order to increase their chances of survival.

However, this communication can also have more dark applications. Some fungi are parasites that penetrate into a host and start breaking down tissue. Parasitic fungi can cause illness and may eventually kill their host.

A couple of species of fungi take this to another level, there are “zombie fungi” that induce inventive manipulation of animal behavior. A specific species of zombie fungi (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis) lives within the bodies of carpenter ants. Once the ant’s body is infected by the fungus, these ants start climbing onto a plant, which is a weird behavior since they instinctively usually stay on the relative safety of the forest floor. Climbing up these plants against their own instinctive behavior is a syndrome known as “summit disease”, during this process the fungus forces the ant to bite into the plant, known as the “death grip”.

As the name implies, these are the last moments of the ant. Mycelium starts growing from the ant’s feet and sticks them to the plant’s surface. Afterward, the fungus digests the ant and sprouts a fruiting body out of its head, from which spores whirl down on ants on the forest floor, repeating their life cycle.

Some dark applications are also happening among plants, some species may send in false information to their neighbors in order to benefit themselves from this inaccurate information that has been sent to deceive neighboring species or plants.

Wood wide web vs. World wide web

It isn’t a coincidence that mycelium networks are these days referred to as the wood wide web since they share commonalities with the world wide web. Even though the world wide web (internet) is created by humanity.

The internet has made it possible for humans to connect and communicate all over the world. In many ways, it creates some sort of coherence among humanity.

For example, if we read some news on the internet about a war that is waging, it does affect us emotionally, especially when shocking images are shown. It creates empathy towards the people directly affected by the war.

The emotions we generate when seeing these images create an invisible field. When enough people see and feel this, we radiate this energy field and tap into the collective consciousness that, in turn, can induce changes in behavior.

Link to psychedelics

The mycelium networks also produce fruiting bodies in the form of mushrooms, much like an apple from a tree. The act of producing mushrooms is one of the various ways for spores to disperse. But mushrooms serve a much greater purpose than merely spreading spores. Mushrooms can be used as food, textile (I’m thinking of Paul Stamets his mushroom hat), various medicines, for holding a lump of hot coal for several hours, ink, fiber, packaging materials, and even biofuel.

Approximately 200+ species of mushrooms have been found to produce a mind-altering compound that has a profound effect on our brain activity.

The compound accountable is psilocybin. Psilocybin in itself doesn’t really induce these mind-altering states after we consume a “magic” mushroom.

Psilocybin quickly metabolizes in the body to psilocin and it is psilocin that is binding to our serotonin receptor in the brain and makes you “trip”. This trip takes us to a world other than our own, using a language different than our own.

So basically the interaction of 2 complex systems, the mycelium network, and the human body (mind). Makes it possible for us to receive a message from a much older, brain-like, problem-solving system. The mycelium provides a fruiting body we can consume, and, after consumption, our own body decodes the psilocybin into psilocin, which in turn has psychoactive effects on humans.

These psychoactive effects make us feel a strong connection to nature again and remind us that we all are interconnected evolved organisms of nature.

Conclusion

The mycelium networks made the earth their home for much longer than humanity.

Therefore, I think there is a lot we can learn about this ancient entangled life. They have unlimited potential.

I think it safe to say that the web of life connects all life forms together. Much like a lichen is a symbiotic life form established out of 2 types of organisms merging together to ensure the survival of both species, whereas they aren’t able to survive separately on their own.

The same applies to many other levels in life. This interconnectedness teaches us that we don’t come into this world, we come out of it. Implications of this belief can transcend humanity to one collective consciousness. A fantastic idea and a new way of life, that, as humans, we need to embrace and cherish.

“Nature is not our enemy, to be raped and conquered. Nature is ourselves, to be cherished and explored.”

Terrence McKenna