Making Beneficial Connections in the Mushroom Community

One of the reasons I love winter rain is because as the rain soaks the ground and fallen logs, mushrooms start to grow. Whether edible or not, mushrooms are the fruiting body of a much larger fungal organism. How do we know that the larger organism is there? It is through the white weblike mycelium that can be found by lifting leaf litter or peeling back decaying bark.

Each species of fungi connects with near by fungi through the mycelium and the fungal community can be called a ‘mycorrhizal network’. The network functions by transporting nutrients, minerals and water from one organism to another. These beneficial communities also help our forests be resilient by transporting nutrients, minerals and water also to trees and shrubs.

These concepts are relatively new as previously we thought individual species survived independently unless they were parasitic. These concepts also resemble the sharing of resources in a well-connected human community. The beneficial sharing in a community can wax and wain depending on seasonal availability of produce and resources. What’s important is that nothing is wasted and we can all benefit from the strong connections.