As you may have heard, on April 18th, our class went on a field to see fungi in the flesh thanks to our fungi leader Korena. As a biology major, the main reason I got into the field because I loved how hands on it was and how in a way, everything works together. I have never had the chance to go on a biology field trip, so I found it to be a very fun way to continue our learning while getting a first hand look at how these things actually work in nature.
Personally, I thought it was great. It was a fun to get our hands a little dirty. I am sure with more time, we could have gone through more of the forest, but in this post I would like to tell you about some of the things we went through that I found or that I felt helped my learning process. (Although fair warning, I may not be as much of a fearless fungi leader as Korena).
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| www.wisegeek.org |
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| http://plantsinaction.science.uq.edu.au/edition1/ |
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We started off with some background information about different kinds of fungi. The two large families (at least that we saw) were Saprophytes and Mycorrhizas. The two main differences between these two types of fungi are the way they obtain their nutrients. Saprophytes are decomposers are fungi that grow from dead or dying object. Mycorrhizas are, as Korena put it, plant bff's. Their hyphae attach themselves to plant roots, to create a mutualistic reaction.
We saw how one tree can be a host for multiple kinds of fungi. On one large Douglas fur, we managed to find at least three different parasitic organisms. There was a two different lichens, including a very interesting rust lichen, and a pathogenic fungi. Pathogenic fungi can bloom fruiting bodies and konks that can kill an entire forest. Lichen on the other hand, epophytes, are composite organisms. Not being fungi, the mosses grow, very slowly, but grow using photosynthesis and don't grow flowers like other fruiting bodies. They do still have spores that helped spread the mosses throughout the forest.
We found a very interesting dead logs that set a good example during our walk. This one dying log was hosting konks, decomposers, and pathogenic fungi. We learned that fruiting body of a fungi can go throughout the long annually. Fungi have specific season they grow through, just like plants. The annual fungi we saw we very fragile underneath and some fell apart as we touched them.
The biggest think I took away from this field trip was a better understanding of lichen. We got to see many, MANY through out this field and even looked at some up close. Most lichen we see are probably much older than we realize, because they are already pretty old by the time they have grown big enough to be visible to the naked eye. Lichens are composite organisms that only grow about a centimeter per year. They are considered non-vascular bryophytes that grow on other things. They have flower like spores that are spread through the wind.
Over all, I think this field trip was a great thing to do. I would most definitely do it again. It helped get a better understanding of everything we are learning. It was very cool to see all the different parts that we have been working with these past few weeks all together, Although, it can also be very cool to get to work with a microscope as well, it was a lot of fun to get to see biology in its environment (ha, see what I did there...).
Nice job! I really enjoyed reading your post. I liked how you discussed lichens, because that was also something that really interested me. Specifically, the fact of how slow they grow was cool because they're so visible and prevalent in the forest. You mentioned how lichen "grow on other things", but I wonder if it's possible for them to grow on their own? I guess probably not, since they do not have roots. Also, I liked how you talked about the flower-like spores lichen produce, because for some reason, I thought they reproduced only asexually by breaking off.
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