Fungi Relationships and Interactions
Human-Fungus Interactions
- Beneficial Effects of Fungi
- Decomposition - nutrient and carbon recycling.
- Biosynthetic factories. Can be used to produce drugs, antibiotics, alcohol, acids, food (e.g., fermented products, mushrooms).
- Model organisms for biochemical and genetic studies.
- Harmful Effects of Fungi
- Destruction of food, lumber, paper, and cloth.
- Animal and human diseases (mycosis), including allergies.
- Toxins produced by poisonous mushrooms and within food (e.g., grain, cheese, etc.).
- Plant diseases.
Ecological Impacts of Fungi
- Ecosystems depend on fungi as decomposers and symbionts: they decompose food, wood and even plastics!
- Some fungi are pathogens
- Plants particularly susceptible (e.g. Dutch elm disease)
- Ergot - affects cereal crops: causes gangrene, hallucinations and “St. Anthony’s fire”
- Many animals, including humans, eat fungi:
- In US, mushroom consumption restricted to Agaricus
- We eat a range of cultivated and wild mushrooms
- Truffles are underground ascocarps of mycelia that are mycorrhizal on tree roots
Animal-Fungus Symbioses
- Some fungi share their digestive services with animals
- These fungi help break down plant material in the guts of cows and other grazing mammals
- Many species of ants use the digestive power of fungi by raising them in “farms”
Fungus-Plant Mutualisms
- Mycorrhizae are enormously important in natural ecosystems and agriculture
- Plants harbor harmless symbiotic endophytes
- Endophytes: fungi that live inside leaves or other plant parts
- Endophytes make toxins that deter herbivores and defend against pathogens
- Most endophytes are ascomycetes