Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World

by Paul Stamets

trees and other green plants could not grow and reach maturity without symbiotic associations with mushrooms, at least with mycelium, the network of fungal threads in soil that act as interfaces between plant roots

A mushroom is the reproductive structure or fruiting body of mycelium.

Engaging mycelium for healing habitats is what I call “mycorestoration.” The umbrella concept of mycorestoration includes the selective use of fungi for mycofiltration, mycoforestry, mycoremediation, and mycopesticides.

There are more species of fungi, bacteria, and protozoa in a single scoop of soil than there are species of plants and vertebrate animals in all of North America. And of these, fungi are the grand recyclers of our planet, the mycomagicians disassembling large organic molecules into simpler forms, which in turn nourish other members of the ecological community. Fungi are the interface organisms between life and death.

The activities of mycelium help heal and steer ecosystems on their evolutionary path, cycling nutrients through the food chain.

With each footstep on a lawn, field, or forest floor, we walk upon these vast sentient cellular membranes.

I believe random selection is no longer the dominant force of human evolution. Our political, economic, and biotechnological policies may determine our future, for better or worse.

We face the possibility of being rejected by the biosphere as a virulent organism.

knowing how to work with fungi—by custom pairing fungal species with plant communities—is critical for our survival.

mycelium is the neurological network of nature. Interlacing mosaics of mycelium infuse habitats with information-sharing membranes. These membranes are aware, react to change, and collectively have the long-term health of the host environment in mind.

That mycelia can spread enormous cellular mats across thousands of acres is a testimonial to a successful and versatile evolutionary strategy.

The mycelial network is composed of a membrane of interweaving, continuously branching cell chains, only one cell wall thick.

the Gaia hypothesis, which postulated that the planet’s biosphere intelligently piloted its course to sustain and breed new life. I see mycelium as the living network that manifests the natural intelligence imagined by Gaia theorists. The mycelium is an exposed sentient membrane, aware and responsive to changes in its environment.

a forest after a rainfall when, I believe, interlacing mycelial membranes awaken. These sensitive mycelial membranes act as a collective fungal consciousness. As mycelia’s metabolisms surge, they emit attractants, imparting sweet fragrances to the forest and connecting ecosystems and their species with scent trails.

I see the myce-lium as the Earth’s natural Internet, a consciousness with which we might be able to communicate. Through cross-species interfacing, we may one day exchange information with these sentient cellular networks.

Fungi may not be unique to Earth.

NASA considered the possibility of using fungi for interplanetary colonization.

Nature tends to build upon its successes. The mycelial archetype can be seen throughout the universe:

rhizomatic

only about 10 percent of the mushroom species have been identified, meaning that our taxonomic knowledge of mushrooms is exceeded by our ignorance by at least one order of magnitude.

Mushrooms can be divided into 2 basic categories depending upon how they form: predeterminant or indeterminant.

Most mushrooms are predeterminant, meaning the stem, cap, and gills preform in the primordial state. If the young primordia are damaged, deformities appear in adulthood.

Less common are the indeterminant mushrooms, including many Ganodermas, Phaeolus schweinitzii, and the rare Bridgeoporus nobilissimus. Their mycelia form primordia that envelop sticks and twigs as they grow. If these young mushrooms are damaged at this stage and go on to recover, they mature with little trace of wounds.

Although spores tend to fall near their parent mushroom, trails of spores can sometimes be seen wafting in the air. Correspondingly, spores tend to be most concentrated closest to the ripening mushroom, with the concentration decreasing exponentially with distance.

That so many mushrooms compete for distribution and safe harbors for their spores may be one reason why so many spores are necessary.

Within a species, younger, thicker-fleshed mushrooms are typically more succulent than older ones and correspondingly have fewer spores.

Generally, when a mature mushroom stops producing spores, it becomes an essential food source for people,

Mushrooms can be placed in 4 basic categories: saprophytic, parasitic, mycorrhizal, and endophytic, depending upon how they nourish themselves. However, exceptions abound, since some species employ more than one strategy, making them difficult to categorize.

Saprophytic mushrooms, the decomposers, steer the course for proliferating biological communities, shaping and forming the first menus in the food web from dead plants, insects, and other animals.

building soils is the primary outcome of the activities of these saprophytic fungi, whose filamentous mycelial networks weave through and between the cell walls of plants.

From dead plants, fungi recycle carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosporus, and minerals into nutrients for living plants, insects, and other organisms sharing that habitat.

a rotting tree in the midst of a canopied forest is, in fact, more supportive of biodiversity than a living tree.

Mycorrhizal mushrooms (myco means “mushroom”; rhizal means “related to roots”),

Because ectomycorrhizal mycelium grows beyond the plant’s roots, it brings distant nutrients and moisture to the host plant, extending the absorption zone well beyond the root structure. The mycelium dramatically increases the plant’s ingestion of nutrients, nitrogenous compounds, and essential elements (phosphorus, copper, and zinc) as it decomposes surrounding debris.

Plants with mycorrhizal fungal partners can also resist diseases far better than those without.

the mycorrhizae can transport nutrients to trees of different species. One mushroom species can connect many acres of a forest in a continuous network of cells.

My practice is to pick no more than 25 percent of the mushrooms of a wild patch, leaving young ones, and when encountering pairs of mushrooms, only pick one of them.

a forest’s vitality is directly related to the presence, abundance, and variety of mycelial associates.

Mushrooms are forest guardians. A forest ecosystem cannot be defined without its fungi because they govern the transition between life and death and the building of soils, all the while fueling numerous life cycles.

People whose immune systems are compromised by a respiratory virus can become infected by bacteria such as Streptococcus pneumonia. Mushrooms having both antiviral and antibacterial properties may prevent such opportunistic infections. Mushrooms also influence populations of bacteriophages—viruses that use bacteria as incubators and vectors for further infection. I hypothesize that studying the interrelationships between mushrooms and their related bacteria, viruses, and bacteriophages will reveal medically significant antibiotics in the near future.

Virologists are concerned about the threat of viral infection from animals. For example, the 2003 sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic may have originated from human contact with captive civet cats in rural China. Viruses and bacteria can also spread when birds, dogs, prairie dogs, bats, vermin, and other animals, including primates and humans, concentrate their populations. Of particular concern to me are animal “factory farms,” wherein thousands of chickens, hogs, cows, or other animals are aggregated, providing a prime breeding environment for microbes. Feedlots and factory farms could possibly be used by bioterrorists as launching platforms for pandemics. Hence, these sources pose a significant microbial threat to human health.

Researchers have found that mushrooms contain polysaccharides, glycoproteins, proteoglycans, ergosterols, triterpenoids, enzymes, acids, and antibiotics that when used individually and in concert can stop infection. Scientists have also found that each species of mushroom has a signature architecture and defense against microbes.

Chicken of the woods (Laetiporus conifericola), is an edible polypore. When slices of this specimen were grilled on a barbecue, the flavor was just like white chicken meat.

we ought to help the forests accelerate the decomposition cycles by introducing mycelium in key areas—in essence by running mycelium. Otherwise our ecosystems will lose their equilibrium, destabilize, and crash, possibly becoming overrun by disease.

Mycorestoration is the use of fungi to repair or restore the weakened immune systems of environments.

The future widespread practice of customizing mycological landscapes might one day affect microclimates by increasing moisture and precipitation. We might be able to use mycelial footprints to create oasis environments that continue to expand as the mycelium creates soils, steering the course of ecological development.

We are in constant molecular communication with fungi, but our interactions are at such a subtle level that most people fail to notice fungi’s talents. Each mushroom species has a mycelium that degrades organic matter by secreting unique mixes of extracellular enzymes and acids. Since unique suites of enzymes are generated by each species, using a plurality of species can have a synergistic effect for the more complete degeneration of toxins than could be achieved with one species alone. The art of this emerging science is in the selection of species and, of equal importance, their timely introduction.

Wild spawn has the major advantage of being already acclimated to habitats teeming with competitors. Conversely, pure culture spawn, bought from commercial spawn suppliers, must either be implanted into clean substrates or slowly adapted to the complex microbial ecosphere that surrounds us.

Natural spawn can be made by transplanting wild patches of mycelium, from germinating mushroom spores, and from regrowing stem butts.

commercial spawn can speed up the early steps of the process, but the mycelium ultimately fairs better if it is inherently fortified against the onsla...

For the stubborn pure culture spawn devotees however, there exists a compromise: Commercial spawn can be naturalized through a process analogous to vaccines—it can be brought into contact with a less-than-virulent dose of the microbes found in the destined habitat. The mycelium’s natural antibiotics preselect microbes that help it survive in the wild. A synergistic blend of microbes joining with the mushroom mycelium provides a defensive shield, much like fortifying an immune system, that not only forestalls competition but streams nutrients and mycelial stimulants.