Forever in humanity
As stated in our previous post, fungi have been present within our civilizations for as long as we can find solid proof for it. Which is currently about 18,000 years ago. In 2015 dental records of human remains from that period of time showed fungal spores. This means that they were at least chewing on mushrooms. Their reasoning behind it will be forever a mystery, but it is probably because they were hungry. Which ultimately is the best reason. Another example came to us about 30 years ago. Scientists discovered Ötzi, the ice mummy. He carried mushrooms on his person as well. He is estimated to have died about 5000 years ago. His mushrooms are assumed not to be for eating, as one is a well known medicinal fungus and the other one is named after its ability to transport fire. Also, the tinder fungus, aptly named, was discovered solely as charred remnants.
Forever on our planet
Fungi might have been on our planet for 2.5 Billion years already. For comparison, our entire universe is estimated to be about 14 billion years old, our planet is 4.5 billion years old. Fungi were early. Like really early. Some possible fossils have been found in marine ecosystems of mycelia (plural of mycelium) that might be from the earliest fungi. At least this is one of the proposed ideas and further research needs to be done. Like always in science, finding a piece of the puzzle, only makes the puzzle bigger. Turns out there is no end to the puzzle of the universe.
Established research however has shown that the fungal lineage is at least 1.2 to 1.4 billion years old. This means the first fungus is 5 times older than the first dinosaur. So they be old. They be very very old. They did not start out like we know them now. Their first ancestors were one-cell-organisms, which over time evolved into the incredible multicellular creatures we know and love today. However, more cells, more work, more need for food. And because fungi need other creatures for their food (heterotrophic), they were often parasitic and even predators in the early stages of their evolution. They often grew parts of themselves into bacteria and other fungi to dissolve them and absorb them. You would probably not recognize those early fungi as being fungi. The mushroom sculpting friends we easily sort as fungi are estimated to have arrived around 700 million years ago. Around the same time as the first animals appeared (still heavily debated).
Forever on land
The first creatures to conquer the land were protists. Single-celled creatures. It didn’t take too long for Fungi to follow though. Where there are dead creatures, or living creatures, there is a fungus waiting to just gobble all of the useful parts. Our lord and savior, the almighty fungus probably started blessing the land around 1000-800 million years ago. Before plants joined them, about 400 million years later. Fungi are so great at breaking down inorganic (like rocks and stuff) and organic (things that lived) material that they made themselves useful for the creatures already on land. Other creatures like plants and animals need those broken down rocks to survive. Elements like phosphor, potassium and iron that are inside of rocks, are necessary for plants to grow. It is thanks to mushrooms that those elements are available to plants and in turn to the animals that eat those plants. In this way they helped create the perfect habitat for plants and later animals (like us mortal humans) to join them. They might not have been the first, but fungi played a huge role in making the land a place for anything and everything to thrive and evolve.
Forever alive
As I wrote in the introduction of this series, some fungi are basically immortal compared to us humans. Armillaria species can possibly live to be 8000 years, what an amazing thing. It has to be noted that this is the exception and it is an estimation. These calculations involve a lot of DNA research and are incredibly difficult to perform, and in turn explain. Other studies of Armillaria species have found ages of 2,5 or 1,5 thousand years old. They are not all immortal, but it has to be said that fungi are true survivors. Not only are they able to keep living for a long time, they can survive through cloning themselves and spreading those clones around the globe. They can create tiny spores which possess their DNA and these spores are picked up by the wind. At a distance of about 10 km in the air, there is a huge concentration of these spores. In this way, even though one fungus dies, its DNA lives on.
How come fungi can survive as long as they can? Well it is a difficult question. If everything goes well, they have an infinite hyphal growth and can keep looking for food. It has been found that mycorrhizal fungi can keep living even after their plant symbiont is dead. They take all the nutriënts they can from the corpse and start looking for a new friend. Also, when they are stressed, they start producing spores or more stress-resilient parts. Wish I could do that, I could have skipped through covid. Those parts/spores are known to be able to survive for 30 or more years, before growing a new mycelium. It would be as if we clone ourselves in an everything-resistant box, wait for 30 years until the source of our stress is gone, and then just start living again. Truly unbelievable.
Of course, fungi are not truly immortal, all creatures must die at some point. For our fungal friends, the end is near when their mitochondria stop working properly. For those who do not know, mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell. They are what give fungi energy, just like in animals and plants. The problem with these powerhouses is that they can not be made out of separate parts. They are made out of other mitochondria. When that happens, a lot can go wrong and the new mitochondria might not be good enough to keep the new cells alive. This means the end for our fungus.
Forever in our hearts
Even though the love for fungi has been contested throughout our history, nobody can deny their importance. Not only are they beautiful, healthy, interesting, and immensely diverse, they are a huge part of our past and our future. Either through studies, stories, fairy tales or true events, mushrooms have been linked with humans since the dawn of humanity. New studies and uses around mushrooms will make sure they will stay linked to us until the inevitable heat death of the universe. We will return to oblivion, hand in hand, skipping and singing. Looking back at how amazing our planet and its creatures are.
