Fastest Flights In Nature: High-speed Spore Discharge Mechanisms Among Fungi
Thursday, September 18, 2008 - 16:36
in Biology & Nature
Microscopic coprophilous (dung-loving fungi) make our planet habitable by degrading the billions of tons of feces produced by herbivores. But the fungi have a problem: survival depends upon the consumption of their spores by herbivores and few animals will graze on grass next to their own dung. Evolution has overcome this obstacle by producing mechanisms of spore discharge whose elegance transforms a cow pie into a circus of microscopic catapults, trampolines and squirt guns.