What role does the fungi play in the ecosystem? The importance of fungi in nature

If you talk about mushrooms, the first thing that comes to mind is autumn forest, quiet hunting. Still it is possible to recollect about yeast, cheese with a mold and penicillin. But what about the role of mushrooms in the ecosystem, why do they need nature, few people think about it. Let's talk about this.

Harm or benefit?

They say that if you put the benefits that a person receives from these organisms and put them on one side of the scales, their cups will be balanced. Although, arguing about the role of fungi in the ecosystem, it is impossible to raise the question. Nature is important and everything is needed.

Fungi studying science mycology is considered one of the sections of botany. But mushrooms have long been separated into a separate kingdom. That is, there is a kingdom of plants and separately - the kingdom of mushrooms.

One of the main features is that the structural carbohydrate in the cell wall of these organisms is chitin. It is also an integral part of the outer skeleton of insects, arthropods. Chitin has interesting properties, one of which is the ability to remove harmful substances from the human body, reduce the cholesterol content. At the same time, because of it, fungi are considered to be heavy food. Children up to 6-7 years of age are better off not being given, breastfeeding mothers are also better not to eat them. The enzyme system of the child can not cope with such a product.

Why does nature need mushrooms?

One of their main functions is the decomposition, processing of organic residues. As a result of biodegradation of dead plant and animal organisms, carbon and minerals return to the natural cycle.

Fungi participate in the processes of soil formation, affect their structure, composition and even the temperature regime. In fact, when rotting, the temperature of decomposing residues rises. This is well known to vegetable farmers who grow vegetables in warm beds.

Mushrooms in the process of their life create a biomass from the mycelium and fruiting bodies (what we have known since childhood as fly agaric, russula, birch bark, etc.). They are fed not only by people, but also by insects and various animals.

Mushroom

The importance of fungi in the creation of mycorrhizas is invaluable. It turns out that mushrooms not only destroy trees, but can be useful for them. In nature, the phenomenon of symbiosis is widespread - beneficial for both organisms coexistence.

Mycorrhizae forms an association of filaments of mycelium and tree roots. The fungus receives nutrients from the higher plant in an accessible form and, in turn, helps it to extract water and phosphorus from the soil. The tree actually has additional roots.

Mycorrhizas can be external, surrounding the roots, and can also penetrate inside. Between cells of two organisms there is an active metabolism. What role does the fungi play in the ecosystem in this case? The life of the forest is simply impossible without them, especially in arid areas.

On the verge of survival

In places where the climate is severe and the vegetation is very scarce, fungi form symbiotic communities not with trees, but with algae, known as lichens. They can be found in the tundra and desert, on rocks, buildings, bark of trees - where there would seem to be no life for life. But mushrooms extract water even from the air, from the dew, and the algae converts carbon dioxide into light for organic food.

The habitation of new spaces, the development of organic materials in these places - this is another meaning of fungi in nature.

Mushroom predators

By way of life and method of nutrition, mushrooms are divided into:

• Soil saprophytes (champignon, govorushka, morelok);
• Xylophils parasitizing the living or decomposing the dead trees (real trash, turtles);
• Mikoriznye, creating a symbiosis with plant roots (white, poderezozovik, moss).

Fungi-coprophils live on manure piles, on carfily fires.

And some mushrooms are able to "hunt". Their prey may be amoebae, insects, nematodes. The filament of the fungus sticks to the victim, envelops in mucus, some even are capable of strangling it, then germinate inside and feed on it. This is another example of the role that fungi play in the ecosystem.

Huge and many-sided

Visible to man the world of fungi is a tiny part of the existing variety of their species. Mushrooms, photos and names of which are familiar from childhood, is a fly agaric, white, an apron, a russula, a pale toadstool and many others. They are in children's coloring books and culinary books, reference books on emergency medicine and pharmacology textbooks. Mushrooms for humans can be exquisite food and deadly poison, able to treat and cause disease, save and destroy crops, make housing unsuitable.

From the mushrooms began the era of antibiotics in medicine. Now more and more evidence is found for use in raising immunity, combating cancer diseases of tinder lacquer, cordyceps, shiitake, etc.

Such they, our visible and invisible, necessary and dangerous neighbors.