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A Forgotten Kingdom Ecologically Industrious and Alluringly Diverse, Australia’S Puffballs, Earthstars, Jellies, Agarics and Their Mycelial Kin Merit Your Attention

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A Forgotten Kingdom Ecologically Industrious and Alluringly Diverse, Australia’S Puffballs, Earthstars, Jellies, Agarics and Their Mycelial Kin Merit Your Attention THE OTHER 99% – NEGLECTED NATURE The delicate umbrellas of this Mycena species last only fleetingly, while its fungal mycelium persists, mostly obscured within the log it is rotting. Photo: Alison Pouliot A Forgotten Kingdom Ecologically industrious and alluringly diverse, Australia’s puffballs, earthstars, jellies, agarics and their mycelial kin merit your attention. Ecologist Alison Pouliot ponders our bonds with the mighty fungus kingdom. s the sun rises, I venture off-track Fungi have been dubbed the ‘forgotten into a dripping forest in the Otway kingdom’ – their ubiquity and diversity ARanges. Mountain ash tower contrast with the sparseness of knowledge overhead, their lower trunks carpeted about them, they are neglected in in mosses, lichens and liverworts. The conservation despite their ecological leeches are also up early and greet me significance, and their aesthetic and with enthusiasm. natural history fascination are largely A white scallop-shaped form at the unsung in popular culture. The term base of a manna gum catches my eye. ‘flora and fauna’ is usually unthinkingly Omphalotus nidiformis, the ghost fungus. A assumed to cover the spectrum of visible valuable marker. If it’s dark when I return, life. I am part of a growing movement of the eerie pale green glow of this luminous fungal enthusiasts dedicated to lifting fungal cairn will be a welcome beacon. the profile of the ‘third f’ in science, Descending deeper into the forest, a conservation and society. It is an damp funk hits my nostrils, signalling engrossing quest, not only because of the fungi. As my eyes adjust and the morning alluring organisms themselves but also for lightens, I make out diverse fungal forms the curiosities of their social and cultural in cryptic microcosms. Elegant pink associations – featuring fears and fables, parasols adorn a fallen log. Carmine superstitions and suspicions, reverence and fungal brackets wear lichen skirts. revulsion. There is much to explore, not just The ghost fungus (Omphalotus nidiformis), Transparent goblets capture morning in the wild, but in the many ways for us to a saprobe, forms clusters of fruitbodies on drizzle. With so many fungi to meet, perceive, know and appreciate fungi. living and dead trees. It can glow in the dark (bioluminescence), which may attract nocturnal identify, contemplate and photograph, animals that help to disperse its spores. Photo: there’s no time to waste. Alison Pouliot 14 | Wildlife Australia | SPRING 2014 The strawberry bracket fungus (Aurantiporus The leathery goblet (Cymatoderma elegans) pulcherrimus) grows on living or dead forms funnel-shaped fruitbodies on rotting Eucalyptus and Nothofagus species. logs in wet forests. Photo: Alison Pouliot Photo: Alison Pouliot Fungi are … fungi also in the exoskeletons of arthropods Because their mycelial tapestry is Without the insights or instruments of such as crustaceans and insects. These hidden from view, fungi are usually only modern science, the Swede known as and other traits not only distinguish conspicuous when, every now and again, the father of taxonomy, Carl Linnaeus, fungi from plants, but reveal their closer in response to changes in temperature, could be forgiven for his two-kingdom relatedness to animals. Fungi share a water and other factors, their fruitbodies categorising of life as either animals or more recent common ancestor (thought emerge. Most appear sporadically and plants. But three centuries later, confusion to be a flagellated protist) with us than fleetingly, some for just hours, while about the identity of fungi is still so with plants. others such as bracket fungi are persistent prevalent that erudite British mycologist For over half a century fungi have and perennial, and others such as Paul Cannon found it necessary to been assigned their own kingdom. truffles do not emerge at all. From these characterise them like this: ‘Let me Some fungi (such as the chytrid fungi fruitbodies, spores (the fungal equivalent start by saying what a fungus isn’t... It that infect amphibians) and fungus-like of seeds) are discharged and dispersed isn’t a plant, and it isn’t an animal. It’s organisms (such as slime moulds) occupy by all manner of ingenious mechanisms. a ... fungus.’ A good start. But forging a two further kingdoms – the Chromista Gilled fungi use an elaborate ballistic popular identity for fungi needs more than and Protoctista. mechanism (ballistospory) to explosively a definition by exclusion. While for many people the word catapult spores into the air, triggered by The historical lumping of fungi with fungus implies a cap-and-stalk style changes in turgor pressure. Puffballs rely plants seems reasonable as fungi, like mushroom, this structure represents just on the energy of a raindrop or the nudge plants, are immobile and were presumed the proverbial tip of the fungal iceberg, of a clumsy animal to compress their to photosynthesise. But we now know its fruitbody (or sporocarp). The actual peridia (the ‘balls’ packed with spores) that fungi obtain their food externally fungus consists of a network of elongated and ‘puff’ the spores out through a by secreting enzymes to break down cells called hyphae (collectively known pore on top. Flies spread spores for complex organic compounds that they as mycelium) within soil, wood or other stinkhorns, drawn to the irresistible stink absorb as simple sugars. Also unlike substrates. They range in size from of a slimy spore-mass atop their phallus- plants, the cell walls of fungi contain millimetres to hundreds of hectares, the shaped fruitbodies. chitin, a tough polymer that features largest organisms on Earth. Their aesthetic and natural history fascination are largely unsung in popular culture. The map lichen (Rhizocarpon geographicum) is a true extremophile surviving some of the harshest conditions on (and off!) the planet. A sample arrived back from 16 days in space apparently unscathed. Photo: Alison Pouliot wildlife-australia.org | Wildlife Australia | 15 Although slime moulds are not fungi, they occur in similar habitats and are included in many fungus field guides. This slime mould is known as wolf’s milk (Lycogala epidendrum). Photo: Alison Pouliot Numbering and naming we work with in nature conservation, with a cyanobacterium. Combining their Because mycologists (scientists who humans included, could survive in a world respective talents has enabled lichens to study fungi) are rare, only about 15,000 without fungi.’ Particularly as recyclers colonise some of the most inhospitable Australian fungi have so far been and symbionts, but also as parasites, habitats on earth, from salt-ravaged scientifically described. This includes food and habitats, fungi perform vital and intertidal zones to arctic peaks, earning terrestrial species in habitats from deserts often exclusive services that underpin the them the title of extremophiles. Even a to alpine peaks, as well as marine and persistence and resilience of ecosystems. trip to outer space with extreme cosmic freshwater species. Around 7000 are The fungi known as saprobes or and solar radiation did not kill the map macrofungi, which form fruitbodies such decomposers secrete potent enzymes to lichen (Rhizocarpon geographicum), which as mushrooms or puffballs that can be break down recalcitrant compounds such was able to respire, photosynthesise and discerned by the human eye. The other as lignin and cellulose. Without them, reproduce on return to Earth. 8000 or so are microfungi observable only nutrients would remain locked up in A third common way of life for fungi with one’s nose wedged in a microscope. great mounds of organic debris, for fungi is parasitism, on hosts that include The majority of the fungus species are the major recyclers of carbon and plants, animals and other fungi. From inhabiting the Australian continent and nutrients from dead plants. the ova of barnacles to the armpits of seas are yet to be named. Estimates Other species form mutually beneficial Homo sapiens, few animals are likely to vary but the total could be as many as a relationships with plants. In mycorrhizas be free of fungal parasites. Although quarter of a million species (based on a the fungal mycelia either form a sheath parasites get a bad rap, they are a natural surmise that there are ten times as many around the tiny rootlets of plants or part of healthy ecosystems and perform fungus as plant species). One hectare of directly enter essential functions eucalypt forest may harbour 1000 fungus rootlet cells to by influencing species, possibly more. Due to our dire greatly extend The majority species interactions, lack of taxonomists, a full accounting of the plant’s regulating populations Australia’s fungal riches will be a long capacity to of the fungus species (natural biological time coming. penetrate more inhabiting the Australian control) and How many fungi can you name? And soil and gain interacting with other how does this compare with flora and access to water continent and seas are ecological drivers to fauna? If you can name even a dozen and nutrients, yet to be named. affect energy budgets fungus species, you are probably a particularly and nutrient cycling. mycologist, mycophagist (fungus-eater) important in Recent work in the or keen naturalist. Names matter – for Australia’s infertile soils. The plant returns Amazonian basin has identified a major anonymous species are inevitably the favour by providing the fungus with role for parasitic fungi in regulating neglected. One positive advance in sugars from photosynthesis.
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