Fungi Field Trip: from mushrooms to maggots by Gwen

We were lucky to have an amazing sunny spring day to venture out into the field to learn about fungi. Korena, our fearless fungi leader, is both incredibley knowledgable and super excited about all thing fungal. Her love of fungi is infectious and I felt lucky to get to go on another fungi adventure with her.

I have been on fungi adventures with Korena before but I always learn and see something new. Like most of you, when I thought of fungi, I mostly envisioned the classic mushroom (mostly representatives of the Phylum Basidiomycota) or the composite organism Lichen. I never really thought of the whole network of mycelia that was under my feet as I walked through the forests. Korena taught me about how incredibley complex and large the underground (and above-ground) fungal life was. I never knew that mycelium could "sense" a change or toxic event and signal to other mycelium across the forest. That was the most exciting thing that I learned.

We saw also saw a few examples of a Amanita species. Korena thought that they were probably Amanita gemmata or  Amanita pantherina.

I was aware that many insect and arthropods, like Collembola (everybody's favorite non-insect hexapod) used fungus as a food source. I did not realize how vulnerable fungi are to insect attack. What fascinated me was the maggots (larvae of fly adults) that were feasting on the Aminita mushroom.

Maggots in Amanita mushroom

❤❤❤ Maggot close-up ❤❤❤

This may not seem interesting at first, but if you think about it Amanita mushrooms are toxic.

Photo from wikimedia.org

Amanita mushrooms contain a variety of toxins, including Amanitins (amatoxins), phalloidins, Haemolytic compounds, and Muscimol and ibotenic acid. Many Amanita species can kill a human, so how can little larvae ingest these mushrooms and deal with the toxins? There is even a species called Aminita muscaria. If you know me, you know that two things get me pretty excited in the biological world... the first is obviously insects... but the second is toxins. I want to know more about how these flies can deal with this toxic mushroom. I hope that I can tell you more about this at a later date... but for now I would love to hear about what you all found fun or exciting about the fungi field trip!

Fungi paparazzi!