Acerca da importância dos fungos no ecossistema

 

"Fungi Can Teach Us a New Way of Looking at the World"

Fungi's role in our world has been vastly underestimated, says biologist Merlin Sheldrake. They can even make decisions, just like us.

Interview Conducted by Rafaela von Bredow und Johann Grolle

Sheldrake: Fungi are of enormous importance. The basic principle of ecology is the relationships between organisms - and fungi form connections between organisms and so embody this idea.

DER SPIEGEL: If fungi are so important, why don’t we see them all over the place?

Sheldrake: Oh, fungi are everywhere. Just take this leaf: Between tens and hundreds of species of fungi live on and in it. No plant has ever been found in nature which does not have fungi in its leaves and in its shoots. Or take the roots of the grass we are walking on, the rotting twigs, the soil under our feet: There are fungi everywhere. You have yeast all over your body, in the lining of your ears, in your nostrils. Even in the air: At this moment, you are breathing fungi. Fifty million tons of fungal spores are floating in the atmosphere, the largest source of living particles in the air. And they change the weather by causing water droplets to form.
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DER SPIEGEL: Have you personally tried the effects of psychedelic mushrooms?

Sheldrake: Yes, under their influence I realized that most of my consciousness was unknown to me. It was as if I had spent my life in a garden until then, and now I suddenly discovered that this garden has a gate through which I can enter a strange and wonderful forest, that was largely unknown to me.

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Sheldrake: Fungi are quite active. Take hunting, for example.

DER SPIEGEL: Excuse me? Mushrooms can hunt?

Sheldrake: Yes. When food becomes scarce, some fungi can switch to a hunting mode. They build traps consisting of sticky loops or poisonous droplets. And with special substances, they lure nematodes into these traps.

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DER SPIEGEL: We are ecosystems?

Sheldrake: Yes, very complex networks. This message from the world of fungi changes the entirety of biology.

DER SPIEGEL: Has it changed you too?

Sheldrake: Yes, I look at the world differently. I have realized that the idea of the individual as a biological unit is in question. The individual is not a clear, clean category. It's more of an assumption than a fact.

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Um autêntico gorro de Inverno