Armillaria, also known as honey fungus, a group of fungi with huge webs of black tentacles stretching for miles under the ground, is home to some of the largest organisms known on the planet.
An 8,500-year-old specimen of Armillaria ostoyae from Oregon, with its isomorphous tentacle mass, covering an area of 3.7 square miles and weighing approximately 7,500 to 35,000 tons, is estimated to be the largest organism in the world. On the outside, this mind-blowingly large organism looks like no more than cute little independent mushrooms.
It is unaffected by ordinary fungicides and can survive for years without feeding.
Don’t look so cute and harmless from the outside; Armillaria, a pathogenic fungus that feeds on trees almost like a vampire; It is actually an extremely dangerous species in that it consumes the lifespan of 600 types of woody plants, destroys vegetation and costs farmers millions of dollars. The reason why this parasitic fungus is so large is that it is partially robust. This gigantic strain is so robust that ordinary fungicides normally used to get rid of fungi can stimulate its further growth, let alone kill Armillaria, which is incredibly resistant to many methods of biological control. In addition, Armillaria can survive for quite some time without any form of feeding.
Debora Lyn Porter, a mechanical engineer from the University of Utah and her colleagues, who researched what makes the mushroom so invincible and powerful, and her colleagues, in their article, “It was found that these mycelial and rhizomorphic networks remain dormant for decades in the absence of living hosts and become active again as new hosts return. ‘ he stated. Using chemical analysis, mechanical testing, and modeling to examine Armillaria ostayae up close, the team compared lab-grown specimens of tentacle-like rhizomorphs with wild specimens; Of the two samples, he concluded that only the wild mushroom produced rhizomorphs with a shield layer that could protect the more sensitive branches inside from both chemical and mechanical forces.
Stating that this outer layer is as strong as a hard plastic, mechanical engineer Steven Naleway underlined that the layer is very strong for the natural world. This layer, darkened by melanin, a pigment known to provide various benefits to fungi, such as binding calcium ions that help neutralize toxins like acids from insects, was also observed to have much smaller pores and a more consistent structure leaving no room for weak spots than seen in lab-grown rhizomes. “If you’re going to have some kind of human biocontrol, you have to fight this calcium and better penetrate this outer surface,” Naleway noted.
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