Fungi Field Trip Post by Nhy Tran

Figure 1. A small tree branch covered with lichens

Lichens are mutualism organisms that need to live close with a photosynthetic organism (cyanobacteria or green algae) to survive. the The examples in Figure 1 are fruticose lichens (known as witch's hair lichens) and foliose lichens (leaf-like structure). Generally, the symbiotic relationship between a photosynthetic organism and lichens is the photosynthetic organism provides lichens carbon and energy; while, the fungus supplies minerals and protection the green algae or cyanobacteria in its mycelium. 

Figure 2

During the field trip, I also learned about the mutualistic relationship between plant and fungi. Mycorrhiza under the ground shows the associate benefits between vascular plant roots and their symbiotic fungi. In a mycorrhizal association, the fungal mycelia throughout the forest use their extensive network of hyphae that contact with soil to transport water and minerals from the soil into the plant, which increases a plant's nutrient uptake. In exchange, the plants supplies fungi with nutrients.

Figure 3. Fungi growing on a dead  tree log

The primary decomposers of a dead tree log (Figure 3) are fungi because they use special enzyme to break down the wood. This process is very important because the nutrients that release by breaking down a dead tree log goes back into the soil for other living organisms. 

Overall, the field trip was very interesting and fun because I prefer to go out and see different types of fungi and mushrooms in a forest rather than sitting in the lab room and look at slides. 

Fungi Field Trip Post by John Yang

Crusty lichen

We saw this lichen during the field trip and it was really interesting to me. I like hiking and I often see that kinds of things during hiking but I couldn't know what it is and actually had no interest about that. After seeing that in real and heard about that lichens characteristics and few things about it, I become more thoughtful about trails and mountains. I think now I can hike in more interest than before. New things to see and observe during the hiking.

Witch-hair lichen

This is witch-hair lichen which we saw in the trail. I thought this is kind of moss before but it wasn't and now I knew it grows really slow and gradually. I thought this kind of things on the tree or plants were moss so they grow really fast after shower come or moisture day. In fact, it grows really slowly so it becomes little cotton ball size after 10 years it started to grow without getting hurt. So, it is reaaaally slow.

That is sick tree. It has some disease or something so, it will die soon. I thought those white things on the tree were just resin from body of the tree to protect itself from predators or other bad fungi but it wasn't. More interestingly, after that tree is die because of that unknown disease, that disease virus move to another tree and kill that, too. What a disaster.... It is sad but it is provision of nature.

I was really looking forward this field trip and it was fun. It was helpful to learn new things and see things in real. Honestly, I can't remember anything specifically except few terminologies but it was fun. I am happy enough to know hairy things on the tree is lichen. Learning from book is good but I think learning from real things which are around us really closely also help us to learn actively. It was good experience. I am really satisfied.

Fungi Field Trip Post by Nobnaret Sonthirak (Kyle)

Figure 1. illustrates the mutualistic relationship between the lichen fungi (white part) and moss.  

It is said that both organisms shown in Figure 1. are photosynthetic organisms. However, in general, the lichen fungi offer protection to moss meanwhile moss offer nutrients from photosynthesis to the lichen fungi.
Moreover, Figure 1 also implies that the growth type of this lichen is "foliose" out of all two other types of growth including fruticose and crustose. It is foliose because the lichen fungi in Figure 1. seems to show leaf-like structures that loosely attach to the substrate.

The video above shows that there many types of fungi that have adapted to digesting various parts of trees including the sapwood, heartwood and root. This implies that fungi are very diverse, and that they can live on different materials.
Furthermore, this video also emphasizes on plant stem anatomy. It is learnt that there are multiple layers in a plant stem including "bark", "cambium", "sapwood", and "heart wood". One interesting layer of the stem is the cambium layer. This layer contains phloem and xylem which functions to transport nutrients and water by push and pull mechanism.

 The video above shows that dead tree log can host diversity of organisms including fungi and moss.

 This field trip also touched on ectomycorhizal fungi and pathogenic fungi that can be beneficial and harmful to plants, and some medicinal values of fungi to human but can harm insects and/or plants. Due to my technological problems, I could not capture any images or videos regarding these fungi. I was an interesting field trip overall.

Fungal Culture Observation by [Fun-Guys]

Members: Brian, Eunice, Thomas, Reylene

The two types of fungi observed in this group was Shiitake from the basidiomycota and Pilobolus from zygomycota. Although they are both eukaryotes and fungus, they have their own funky names after them:

Fungus Name	Shiitake	Pilobolus
Domain	Eukaryote	Eukaryote
Kingdom	Fungi	Fungi
Division	Basidiomycota	Zygomycota
Class	Agaricomycetes	Mucoromycotina
Order	Agaricales	Mucorales
Family	Marasmiaceae	Pilobolaceae
Genus	Lentinula	Pilobolus
Species	L. edodes

Similarities

• Chitin cell walls
• Has dikaryotic stage
• Underground hyphae filaments
• Lack chloroplasts(no photosynthesis)

Shiitake(Basidiomycota)

• Wood decomposers(remember lignin peroxidase?)
• Produce fruiting body(mushroom)
• Let spores out through gills
• Hyphae has septa(cross walls)=mycelia

Pilobolus(Zygomycota)

• Hyphae lacks septa
• Hyphae fuse to make zygosporangia
• Shoot spores out of sporangium

If you are allergic to letters, look at the pictures below.

 Life cycle of Shiitake, basidiomycota:

Lifecycle of Pilobolus, zygomycota:

For experiment methods, Pilobolus culture dish was set inside a milkshake cup with a hole on top to let in sunlight. Shiitake log was covered with a transparent plastic bag and sprayed with water as often as possible. For more details, reference to the EdCC BIOL 213 lab manual.

Few weeks later, while Pilobolus was happily enjoying their life on feces, shooting spores towards the sun light, Shiitake seemed like it wasn't enjoying it's log at all.

spores!

Mushroom... crumbs?

Shiitake fungi normally grow in warm moist climates of Southeast Asia, so maybe it was home sick.

But eventually it opened it's fruiting body by our love and DI water.

And was picked and dissected for slides!

Mushroom sibling rivalry

Would definitely recommend this assignment to future college students short in cash and vitamin D. Clinical trial kind of demonstrated. We assure no animals or our group members were harmed during the trial.

FUNGI CULTURE OBSERVATION By Group REJ

FUNGI CULTURE OBSERVATION
By Group REJ

Group Members: Jaena Ristel Bautista, Robert Barker, Nhung Nguyen

PEARL OYSTER MUSHROOM

Introduction:

    Our group had to water the oyster mushroom twice a day for two weeks. There were three different mushrooms to choose one of the three to take care of Shiitaki mushrooms, Pearl Oyster Mushroom and Lion’s mane. We were able to take our Pearl Oyster Mushroom home after two week’s and enjoy it with our dinner. We had to keep the temperature for our mushroom to grow above 60 degrees and below 75 degrees.

Pearl Oyster Mushroom Classification:

Domain: Eukarya

Members of Eukarya are characterized by the presence of membrane bound organelles and a true nucleus bound by a nuclear envelope.

Kingdom: Fungi

Fungi are heterotrophs that exhibit alternation of generations, meaning that both the diploid and haploid stages of its life cycle exhibit multicellularity. They have cell walls made of chitin and reproduce via spores.

   

Phylum: Basidiomycota

Basidiomycota contains club shaped structures called basidia where sexual spores are produced.

However, Basidiomycota also includes single-celled forms (yeasts) and asexual species.

Class:  Agaricomycetes

The agaricomycetes are mushroom producing fungi. Most mushroom producing fungi are members of this class.

Order:  Agaricales

The agaricales are traditionally known as the gilled mushrooms.

Family:   Pleurotacea

Pleurotaceae is a family gilled mushrooms, most of whom are saprotrophic on wood substrate with some members of the family able to derive nutrition from nematodes.

Genus:  Pleurotus

All members of the genus Pleurotus are nematophageous with most being saprotrophic on wood. The fruiting bodies are usually flat with the cap offset from the stalk, or the stalk hardly present at all. The spores leave a lilac, grey, or white spore print.

Species: Pleurotus ostreatus

Pleurotus ostreatus (roughly translating to "beside-the-ear oyster-shaped") predominantly grows on hardwoods throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. It has a pale lilac-grey spore print and a soft fleshy fruiting body that ranges in color from white to grey, brown or even blackish.  There's some variability among the species due to the wide distribution and reproductive isolation between continents.

REPRODUCTION: (SEXUAL)

-It begins it's life as a haploid spore that's released from the basidium
-It germinates into a haploid mycelia that grows and feeds
-The haploid mycelia meets another haploid mycelia of a compatible mating type and they undergo plasmogamy, fusion of their cell membranes to create a dikaryotic cell, one with two genetically different haploid nuclei
-The new dikaryotic cell multiplies and divides to live as a multi-cellular dikaryotic organism. This is the dominant stage of a fungal life cycle and Pleurotus ostreatus will spend a majority of its life in this phase while growing and gathering nutrients.
-The mushroom develops dikaryotic basidia that line the surface area of the gills.
-The nuclei in the basidia finally undergo karyogamy, fusion of the nuclei, and at last form a diploid nucleus that     quickly undergoes meiosis.
-Each diploid nucleus yields four haploid nuclei of different mating types that develop into a basidiospore to repeat the cycle.

Other Information:

• Saprophytic lifestyle
• adopt their nutrition from other decaying organisms
• grow on decaying wood and trees, spreading their hyphae into the plant to feed on carbohydrate-rich cellulose
• prefers the lignin that makes up the secondary cell walls of hard woods from angiosperm trees
• fruiting body of the mushroom never develops these secretory cells, so you don't have to worry about ingesting any toxins when you cook up your own oyster mushrooms
• grows in temperate biomes globally, especially in North America, Europe, and Asia

Source: http://bioweb.uwlax.edu/bio203/2011/woller_ryan/index.htm

OBSERVATIONS

WEEK 2

Our Pearl Oyster Mushroom grew numerous number of spores! Due to millions of these spores, most of them fell down on the basket. It looks like granulated powder. The spores grew mostly from the gills of the mushroom.

WEEK 3

On week 3, we observed that the mushrooms dried off and died. (Maybe because it was sprayed with too much water!- we really do not know why) In addition to that, the mushroom was also observed with fungi on them! “Fungi on a fungi” Cool or not?

“Fungi on fungi mushroom”

Here is a microscopic view of the fungi that grew on our Pearl Oyster Mushroom. We are thinking that these round structures are the spores of the new fungi.

WEEK 7

The regrowth of our oyster mushroom

In growing our mushroom, we could say that it was very successful and fun! We enjoyed observing it grow especially when we saw how much spores it could produce. These mushrooms are really easy to grow and tastes good too! (Yes, they are edible!). We would definitely recommend growing these mushrooms for the next classes.

PILOBOLUS

Introduction:

 

    The pilobolus required less amount of work than the mushroom did. Our group had to cover the pilobolus with a styrofoam cup and make a hole in the top. The hole in the top made it so that the pilobolus could grow through the cup over a period of a few days.

   

Pilobolus Classification:

Domain: Eukarya

Kingdom: Fungi

Phylum: Zygomycota

Class: Mucoromycotina

Order:  Mucorales

Family: Pilobolaceae  

Pilobolaceae that are known for their explosive spore dispersal

Genus:  Pilobolus

REPRODUCTION:(ASEXUAL)

• The Pilobolus life cycle begins when a herbivore defecates.
• Pilobolus mycelium (the cobweb-like hyphae through which the fungi eats) grow and feed on the manure.
• As the Pilobolus feeds and grows, it develops sporangia, which contain the Pilobolus' reproductive spores.

***The Pilobolus must move because herbivorous animals won't feed near dung piles and Pilobolus needs to be ingested by a herbivore for the essential next phase in its life cycle***

• the Pilobolus launches its sporangia into the air, sometimes more than 6 feet. Thus the Pilobolus spreads out over its habitat and significantly increase its chances of being eaten by a cow, deer, horse or other herbivore
• A herbivore feeds on grass containing Pilobolus sporangia. The sporangia passes through the animal's digestive system without harm. The animal defecates the spores.

Other Information:

• Pilobolus species feed saprobically on the feces of herbivores
• Pilobolus is not a parasite that steals nutrients from its host and it does not appear to cause any human, plant or animal diseases
• It cannot produce its own food, so it lives on the undigested plants, bacteria, water and minerals ---particularly nitrogen --- in the dung of herbivores
• These fungi are diminutive, usually less than 10 mm (0.4 inch) in height, and are characterized by a sparse mycelium (fungal body) that produces unbranched sporangiophores (fruiting bodies) capped with black sporangia (spore clusters).
• use a phototropic (light-following) squirt-gun mechanism to disperse their sporangia up to 3 metres (10 feet) away from the parent fungus and onto uncontaminated vegetation.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilobolus

http://www.britannica.com/science/Pilobolus-fungus-genus

http://www.gardenguides.com/135863-pilobolus-life-cycle.html

OBSERVATIONS

As we can see on the pictures of the Pilobolus on the cup, spores from the sporangia was shot out. Especially, the Pilobolus orient themselves at the light sources and shoot their spores in that direction so that the spores can travel further from the excrement. This makes the chances of the spores being eaten higher. We think that the asexual reproduction of the Pilobolus is more complicated than the asexual reproduction of other fungi because it still needs to take place inside of a herbivore as well as light is needed for the reproduction process. Compared to the Pearl Oyster Mushroom, the Pilobolus grew less spores.