Introducing 

Prezi AI.

Your new presentation assistant.

Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.

Loading…
Transcript

Fungi

Fungi

What is Fungus?

  • Considered its own kingdom
  • Helped plants evolve from water to land
  • Are first to found new ecosystems
  • Lichen (Fungi and Algae/Bacteria)
  • Mushrooms
  • Fruits for reproduction
  • 2.2-3.8 million species
  • 6-10 times number of plant species
  • Examples:
  • Mildew, mold, yeast, rust

Internal Structure

  • Fruiting Body
  • Mushroom
  • Hyphae
  • Fungal filaments made of chitin
  • Contain cytoplasm and nuclei
  • Mycelium
  • Cluster of hyphae, continues growing to reach needed nutrients

They're Everywhere

Location

Real Cordyceps infection vs. game/show "Last of Us "

  • Medicine (ex. Penicillin)
  • Food
  • Outer space
  • All over our bodies, but largely in our guts
  • Digestive plaque
  • You have more microbes within you than your "own" cells
  • Ink
  • Live all over the world in every ecosystem- including deserts, oceans, and the Arctic

The Mushroom Past-

The Devonian Period (400 mya)

A Look into the Past

  • Prototaxites
  • almost 2 stories tall
  • Largest living organism on dry land for at least 40 million years
  • Plants were only a meter tall (3.28 ft)
  • No vertebrates on land yet
  • Their demise was evolving insects that ate them from the inside

Symbiotic Relationship

Plants

  • 90% of plants rely on mycorrhizal fungi
  • No plant grown naturally has been found without
  • Draws minerals from soil
  • Draws sugars from plant roots
  • Use chemicals to communicate with other plants and animals

How is this happening

How is this

happening?

  • Chemical responses through soil
  • Fungal hyphae and plant roots detect these through the busy soil community to connect to each other
  • These chemicals not only attract the other partner, it changes the physiology of the plant/fungus
  • The chemicals given cause both to change their metabolism and immune systems
  • This hyphae and plant root relationship is constantly changing to fit environment

Carbon Sequestration

Climate Change

  • The rise in global temperatures is due in part by the increase of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere
  • It can remain sequestered in the ground to reduce this impact
  • This is where fungi can help

Mycelium

Fungi and Carbon

  • Inter woven hyphae of fungi that hold the soil together
  • Large amount of soil carbon is stored within tough organic compounds made by fungi
  • Soil carbon amounts for twice the amount of carbon than in plants and the atmosphere combined
  • Carbon brought through mycorrhizal networks support vast interconnected food webs for fungi and other species
  • So, fungi can be used to keep carbon in the ground to avoid releasing into atmosphere

Crops and Fungi

Agriculture

  • Organically managed fields leads to higher abundance and complexity of underground fungi
  • Can improve quality of harvest
  • Evidence of this with basil, strawberries, tomatoes, and wheat
  • Can increase the resistance to weeds, disease, salinity and heavy metals, plus help produce defensive chemicals to fight insect pests

The Negative Possibilities

  • Success of introducing fungi and other microbes to plants varies
  • Depends on ecological fit of the plant and the fungi type
  • Can lead to harmful fungal strains and destruction of cropland
  • Crop strains we have created to grow fast lead to inability to form relationships with fungi
  • So, can we attempt breeding new "supercrops" that can grow fast and form beneficial fungal relationships?

Are they always helpful?

Sources:

Sheldrake, Merlin. Entangled Life. New York, N.Y. Random House, 2020

Sources

Learn more about creating dynamic, engaging presentations with Prezi