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Other examples of aquatic fungi include those living in hydrothermal areas of the ocean. [48] Widespread white fungus in wood chip mulch in an Oklahoma garden [49] As of 2020, around 148,000 species of fungi have been described by taxonomists, [8] but the global biodiversity of the fungus kingdom is not fully understood. [50]
More recently, scholars have added a third type of interaction, where living things, whether animals, [6] plants, [7] fungi or microbes function as participants. This makes the relationships bidirectional, explicitly implying various forms of symbiosis in a complex ecology.
Fungi have appeared, too, from time to time, in literature and art. Fungi create harm by spoiling food, destroying timber, and by causing diseases of crops, livestock, and humans. Fungi, mainly moulds like Penicillium and Aspergillus, spoil many stored foods. Fungi cause the majority of plant diseases, which in turn cause serious economic losses.
Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their taxonomy, genetics, biochemical properties, and use by humans. [1] Fungi can be a source of tinder, food, traditional medicine, as well as entheogens, poison, and infection.
This list is not exhaustive and does not contain many fungi that, although not deadly, are still harmful. For a less-detailed list of fungi that include non-deadly poisonous species, see List of poisonous fungi.
An organism is any living thing that functions as an individual. [1] Such a definition raises more problems than it solves, not least because the concept of an individual is also difficult. Many criteria, few of them widely accepted, have been proposed to define what an organism is.
With fungi, it doesn’t replicate at those high levels, and the mutation rate of fungi is not as high as viruses,” Penaloza explains. That said, “It could still happen,” he says.
Based on the number of species reported in the literature and those represented in the collections; the number of microfungi known in the United States is estimated at 29,000 species. In certain areas of the temperate northern hemisphere where fungi have been well studied, the ratio of vascular plant to fungal species is about 6 to 1. [2]