Mushrooms: Airbenders of the Mushroom World
Mushrooms may appear to be basic, spore-producing machines. They sit quietly throughout the forest, never making noise or moving on their own. Besides a few species causing rot and taking down weak trees, they don’t have any control of the environment around them. Or so it seemed.
According to US scientists, who presented their finding at the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics in Pittsburgh, Shiitake and Oyster mushrooms create their own wind currents. The scientists used high-speed filming techniques and mathematical models to show how the mushrooms released water vapors in order to cool the air around them and create the convection currents.
These small air currents then carry the spores of the mushrooms far distances where they have even more chance of growing. While each mushroom has the potential to produce millions of spores, they won’t do any good unless the spores can reach a location that’s optimal for fungal growth. ”Our research shows that these ‘machines’ are much more complex than that: they control their local environments, and create winds where there were none in nature,” said lead scientist Professor Emilie Dressaire. She and her colleagues believe that all mushroom fungi, not just Oyster and Shiitake, may use the same process in order to spread.