Taken a Lichen to Fungi

     Last Friday afternoon,our Biology 11 class embarked on a fungi hunt in the local park. It was a cold and slightly damp day but us Vancouver-ites were used to it. After being confined in classrooms for the majority of the day, everybody eager to breathe in the fresh air of the outdoors and find and observe the fascinating fungi we learned about all week. Well, some of us were just excited because we were not doing any work that involved a pen and paper. For someone who usually dislikes hands-on learning, I actually quite enjoyed this fungi hunt. Seeing the fungi in their natural habitat breathed life into the inanimate diagrams we saw in our textbooks. I realized that those vague concepts of these seemingly simple creatures we learned about in class was actually an intricate web of relationships. These creatures affect not just the animals that feed off them but also us and our entire ecological system.

    In class, we  learned that there were five phyla of fungi: oomycota, ascomycota, basidiomycota, zygomycota and deuteromycota. Of these phyla, we identified most of the fungi we found to be basidiomycota (as the majority of the fungi we found were mushrooms.) However, that may be only the fruiting bodies were visible above ground and perhaps, many fungi were underground and did not produce fruiting bodies where we were. We saw many different mushrooms but most of them were a neutral colour of off-white or beige. We did not see many brightly-coloured mushrooms or jelly fungi. My hypothesis is that lots of brightly coloured animals and plants that are poisonous live in tropical regions, and in the same way, poisonous, bright fungi probably exist only in tropical regions. 

    

A shelf mushroom growing out of a dead log. (left)  Puffballs growing from another dead log. (right)

Fungi does not get nearly as much credit for all the hard work that they do. They, along with bacteria, are the world's major decomposers. The disappearance of autumn leaves over winter can only be attributed by the digestion of fungi.                                            

Club Fungi peeking out from dead leaves. 

  Liberty cap sprouding from tree trunk.

 Fruiting bodies of a species of fungi (perhaps from phyla ascomycota.)

Seems to be some kind of a mold (zygomycota) or maybe crustose lichen. 

Rust on maple leaf. (left) 

Fungi can also be harmful. Some, like the potato blight fungus or wheat rusts, destroy crops. Similarly, the rust is breaking down this maple leaf.

During our fungi hunt, we also tried to find the three different forms of lichen. Personally, I only found crusticose lichen. They were growing on the bark of trees. I think I might have overlooked foliose and fruiticose lichen.


   

Crusticose lichen on tree bark.

     All in all, our fungi hunt was very enjoyable although we were slightly disappointed in not finding any jelly fungi or coral fungi. Our spontaneous field trip was a success. While we learn facts about fungi in the class room, we do not come to a full understanding until we actually see the fungi in their natural habitat. There is only so much diagrams can teach you. Beyond that, studying and experiencing living things to their full extent can only be done on trips such as these. No amount of facts can compare to observing the relationships of these fungi with the ecological system.