The importance of Fungi
Fungi are one of the most important groups of organisms on the planet. This is easy to overlook, given their largely hidden, unseen actions and growth. They are important in an enormous variety of ways.
Recycling
Fungi, together with bacteria, are responsible for most of the recycling which returns dead material to the soil in a form in which it can be reused. Without fungi, these recycling activities would be seriously reduced. We would effectively be lost under piles many metres thick, of dead plant and animal remains.
Mycorrhizae and plant growth
Fungi are vitally important for the good growth of most plants, including crops, through the development of mycorrhizal associations. As plants are at the base of most food chains, if their growth was limited, all animal life, including human, would be seriously reduced through starvation.
Food
Fungi are also important directly as food for humans. Many mushrooms are edible and different species are cultivated for sale worldwide. While this is a very small proportion of the actual food that we eat, fungi are also widely used in the production of many foods and drinks. These include cheeses, beer and wine, bread, some cakes, and some soya bean products.
While a great many wild fungi are edible, it can be difficult to correctly identify them. Some mushrooms are deadly if they are eaten. Fungi with names such as 'Destroying Angel' and 'Death Cap' give us some indication that it would not be a terribly good idea to eat them! In some countries, collecting wild mushrooms to eat is a popular activity. It is always wise to be totally sure that what you have collected is edible and not a poisonous look-a-like.
and more about mushrooms
These saprophytic fungi are essential to the processes of decay. Without them to help recycle nutrients, life on earth as we know it would cease. The fungal mycelium absorbs the food it needs from whatever dead, rotting material it is growing on. In so doing, the rotting remains are gradually broken down. Fungi are not the only organisms involved in the rotting process. Bacteria and other living organisms such as earthworms are also vitally important. Eventually, the dead, rotting material playing host to this variety of organisms, will totally disintegrate. After all the fungi, bacteria and other invertebrates have extracted their food, what is left returns to the earth to act as fertilizer.
The second group of fungi are called mycorrhizal fungi. Like the first group, they break down organic matter, but in addition, the mycelium is attached to roots of living trees and plants. They extract food (sugars) that they need from these living plants, but in return they supply the host plant with some of the nutrients and water which the plant may require. Thus both the fungi and the plants upon which they feed, flourish because of the association. This is known as a symbiotic relationship. Certain plants, such as orchids, are totally dependent on a fungus associated with their roots in order to grow at all.
The last group are called parasites. They attack and can kill living plants, trees and other animals. Some fungi, when they have killed their host will then employ the first method and become a saprophyte, rotting the dead host.
By Gvanca Boshishvili; Nini Giorgadze; Ani Altunashvili
