Fungi are super cool. In the 1960s they gained their freedom and were given their own “family” on the tree of life. Not plant, not animal - fungi are their own dang thang.
We (and the rest of animal-kind) are more closely related to fungi than we are to plants. Plants make their own food via photosynthesis, and they are made of mostly cellulose and lignin. Cellulose is the material we eat and digest when we eat fruits and veggies — lignin can’t be digested by humans or other animals. Thank goodness for fungi. White Rot fungi eat lignin — this is what you see when you find mushrooms growing on woodchip piles, or half-dead trees. This is also the reason that some fungi can be applied to oil spills to consume the oil. The oil is basically liquid fossilized trees — really really really old lignin. The fungi has enzymes to be able to take a “bite” out of these materials and slowly break them down and use them for their own building materials.
You may have also heard of mycorrhizal fungi — these are the dudes that have built relationships with plants and trees and help provide water and nutrients across their network (often referred to as the wood-wide-web ala Suzanne Simmard). They can provide communications channels and pass warnings to the nodes across their webbed connections. These networks are made up of thin root-like hairs called mycelium and a single tread is called a hypha. The mycelium connect to a root of a plant and provide the delivery service of resources right to their “door”. Mycelium spread out their fungal hyphae in all directions in search of opportunities. Their hyphal web provides a huge advantage to plants they’re connect with because roots can only go so far and take quite a long time to develop root hairs. Mycorrhizal fungi can branch out quickly, covering an amazing amount of ground and provide resources from other plants and trees in the network so that when times are hard or a plant is stressed, there may be resources available to support it across the network.
Mycorrhizal networks are so beautiful and powerful. They sink carbon, build soil structure, clean up toxins, seek out resources, provide food for animals, solve challenges in novel ways, and more.
What if WE could embody the mycelial way?
How might we reach out and connect with others in our community to provide access to underutilized resources or services?
How might we provide warning to our communities in time to prevent disaster?
How might we use lines of communication in our network to provide connection, news, and innovation?
How might we sink carbon in a way that also heals ecosystems?
How might we build healthy soils?
How might we remove toxins by natural processes using biorememdiation, mycoremediation, microbial remediation, vermiremediation?
How might we grow nutritious food in regenerative ways?
How might we solve riddles using novel ideas for innovation?