The Wonderful World of Fungi

DW (2025)

Film Review

Neither plant nor animal, fungi have their own separate kingdom and have survived five mass extinctions in the last billion years.

By definition all fungi begin as spores and sprout hyphae one-fifth the width of a human hair to look for food. Forming a complex network called a mycelium, hyphae can smell, see light and detect heat and electricity and solve a variety of complex problems without a brain. Some mycelia are larger than 10 square kilometers. Some sprout mushrooms by weaving themselves into a bundle and inflating it with water to disperse new spores.

Ninety percent of plants rely on fungi to survive. By using their hyphae to provide them with minerals they need, fungi are rewarded with sugars plant produce via photosynthesis and disperse through their roots. This network of plant roots and mycelia is known as the Wood Wide Web. Fungi also play an essential role in recycling the building blocks of both plant and animal life through decomposition and in the earth’s water cycle. Fungal spores, which attract water to form raindrops, also play a big role in rainfail patterns.

Yunan Province in China is one of the most diverse fungal environment on earth, and the Chinese, who began farming mushrooms 2,000 years ago, are in the forefront of fungal research. Eight hundred species of Yunan mushrooms are edible, and some have been used medicinally for millenia. Chinese scientists have discovered fungi that eat plastic, as well as a type of organic plastic made from plastic that looks like Styrofoam and can be used to make surfboards and leather.

Tarkine, the planet’s oldest (65 million years) rainforest in Tasmania, is also an excellent site for fungal research. Scientists estimate they’ve on discovered 5% of the fungi on Earth.