This fungi field trip gave me a chance to study about the
fungi differently. I was able to get outside of the laboratory and explore the
natural world, which was pretty exciting. The most valuable knowledge I have
achieved from this trip was the relationship between different kinds of fungi
and other organisms in the ecosystem.
Karena said there are three main types of fungi: decomposer fungi,
mycorrhizal fungi, and pathogenic fungi. The three pictures below shows an example of
decomposer fungi. These fungi play an important role to the ecosystem, as they grow on dead plants to recycle them into chemical nutrients
and release these nutrients back to the soil. One more thing, they are incredibly hard as a rock!
Unfortunately, I forgot to take picture of mycorrhizal fungi. But there was this tree that I was pretty interested in.
As you can see, there was a white area on the tree (it was bleeding sap!) and also a big hollow hole. Both was caused by pathogenic fungi. They were eating up this poor tree. It is just a matter of time for the tree to break down as it was in such a terrible condition.
Overall this was a pretty exciting trip and of course, more fun than just
looking at slides. I believe getting outside is really one effective way to
learn how organisms live, function and are connected to each other. I honestly
look forward for more experiences like this in the future (if I retake this
class).
Thank you for sharing the post. I agree with you that going on a field trip was much more interesting and fun than looking at slides in the lab. On the field trip, I used a small tree branch and hit the decomposer fungi to see how hard it is, and I agree with you that these fungi are as hard as rock. We also had a chance to look at different types of lichens in this field trip. For me, I found the Fruticose lichen that we saw were definitely look like "witch hair" which is a common name for this kind of lichen.
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