What do mushrooms eat
According to the type of nutrition, mushrooms are divided into symbionts and saprotrophs. Symbionts parasitize living organisms. And saprotrophs include most of the mold and cap mushrooms, yeast. Saprotrophic fungi form a constantly elongating mycelium every day. Due to the rapid growth and structural features, the mycelium is closely associated with the substrate, which is partially digested by secreted enzymes outside the body of the fungus, and then absorbed into the fungal cells as food.
Based on the fact that mushrooms are devoid of chlorophyll, they are completely dependent on the presence of a source of organic nutrition, which is already completely ready for consumption.
The bulk of fungi use organic matter of dead organisms for their nutrition, as well as plant residues, rotting roots, decaying forest litter, etc. The work done by mushrooms to decompose organic matter is of great benefit to forestry, as it increases the rate of destruction of dry leaves, branches and dead trees that would litter the forest.
Fungi develop wherever there are plant remains, for example, fallen leaves, old wood, animal remains, and provoke their decomposition and mineralization, as well as the formation of humus. So, fungi are decomposers (destroyers), like bacteria and other microorganisms.
Mushrooms differ greatly in their ability to absorb various organic compounds. Some can consume only simple carbohydrates, alcohols, organic acids (sugar mushrooms), others are able to secrete hydrolytic enzymes that decompose starch, proteins, cellulose, chitin and grow on substrates containing these substances.
Parasitic fungi
The life of these fungi is carried out at the expense of other organisms, incl. mature trees. Such fungi can be introduced into randomly formed cracks or get inside trees in the form of spores carried by insects eating holes in the bark. Sapwood beetles are considered to be the main carriers of spores. If you examine them in detail under a microscope, then on the fragments of the external skeleton of these insects, as well as on the shell of their testicles, there is a hyphae. As a result of the penetration of the mycelium of parasitic fungi into the vessels of plants, fibrous seals of a whitish color are formed in the tissues of the “host”, as a result of which it quickly withers and dies.
However, it is worth noting the existence of fungi that parasitize other fungi. A striking example of this is Boletus parasiticus, which can develop exclusively on fungi belonging to the genus Scleroderma (false puffballs). At the same time, there is no clear distinction between these development systems. For example, certain groups of parasitic fungi, as a result of certain circumstances, can become absolute saprophytes. Examples of such fungi are tinder fungi, as well as the usual autumn mushroom, which can use up the resources of the “host” and kill it in a very short period of time, after it dies, it uses already dead tissues for its life activity.