Where do mushroom forests thrive?
Lichen are a symbiotic organism that involves algae or cyanobacteria living inside a fungus. The algae produce energy through photosynthesis, while the fungus protect the algae from the environment and provide access to water and nutrients. In many ways, this relationship is similar to that of corals and photosynthetic dinoflagellates.
I wish to create a forest of symbiotic mushrooms. The sun-facing surface of the mushrooms is permeated with a symbiotic photosyntesizer. Mushrooms, of course, can have a variety shapes and sizes with a diversity almost resembling a coral reef. Let us assume for the purposes of this question, that mushrooms' chitin based cell walls can be adapted to allow mushrooms to grow to several meters in height, at least. I will leave the maximum vertical height or horizontal cap spread of these mushrooms to the judgement of the answerer.
My question: In what climate or biome would mushroom forests have the most competitive advantage against other plants?
Secondary question: What sort of ecological relationships would these mushrooms develop with other plants?
This question is strictly flora/plant based, more fauna questions to come.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/59005. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
Maybe it doesn't actually have much to do with light as it does with nutrients.
Say the mushrooms are parasitic on other plants and aggressively predatory.
Their spores invade a forest, latch onto trees and begin sending their mycelia all over like vampiric fingers, spreading more mushrooms very fast, killing the trees off. After the tree dies the mushrooms begin feeding off their rotting remains and start growing taller. They don't have to get too tall since they don't need the sunlight, they just want to be high enough that the spores can get some distance.
The honey fungus is one type of parasitic mushroom which is able to infect and kill healthy trees. One of its subspecies is the Armillaria ostoyae, which is thought to be the largest organism in the world. Mainly growing underground, the mycelia of this patch covers over 2,400 acres in Oregon. It's estimated to be over 2,200 years old.
This parasitic super fungus, known as Armillaria Lamia, could also spread underground and not just through spores, attacking the trees at the roots and working their way up. Normal mushrooms do not photosynthesise, though there could be a secondary lichen that is symbiotic with the mushrooms.
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