Mycelium
Summary:
This video shows how how the mycelium of fungi grows and how it gets food and nutrients for the fungi.
The mycelium is a mat of hyphae that forms the feeding body of the fungus. Basically, the fungus has no roots or leaves, so it relies highly on the mycelium to get the energy they need. The mycelium produces digestive acids and then uses them so it could spread farther into the ground to find more dead plant tissue. But to get a lot of nitrogen, the mycelium searches for the microscopic worms called nematodes. The mycelium produces loops and while they are being created, they produce a chemical to attract the nematodes to the loops. After the nematode has gone through the loop, the loop suffocates the nematode and gets the nitrogen from it.
Relevance to Class:
This video relates to the microbes unit that we went through. We learned about fungi and the mycelium and how the mycelium gets the food for the fungi. We also learned how they get nutrients from the worms by using the loops that are summarized above.
Article Info:
URL:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n04wCkIpuQ
Author: Fernando Castro
Date of Publication: Published on May 4, 2010
Could a plant theoretically survive without mycelium?
ReplyDeleteA plant does not have mycelium, so it can obviously survive without it. But if we are talking about a fungus, I think that it would not survive, because the mycelium is basically the whole body of the fungus, and if there were to be no mycelium, then the fungus would probably not exist. Also, the mycelium is the fungi's main source of nutrition, so again, if there was no mycelium, then the fungus would not get the nutrients and food it needs and it will die out.
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