jack742's Journal

On the 6th of October 2021, we are asked to make five different observations about fungus and make five identifications about other peoples’ observations. It does come to my attention that the location where I found those fungi share something in common. No matter what the size or the type of fungus is, I found the fact that they usually grow up in a moist, lightless environment. Hence, I believe this is a self-adaption result for the environment because their hyphases are too thin to dry out easily without being in moist, lightless conditions. Fungi mainly absorb water and digest sugars and starches which they use to grow. (Microbe Magic)
Furthermore, I also noticed that a lot of fungi grow on trees and I am curious why would that happen? One reasonable explanation is some fungi act as decomposers in the ecosystem. They are still essential to the growth of forests, sharing nutrients between trees and helping to break down dead wood and release nutrients back into the soil. If a tree has already been weakened, a fungus can move in and feed off the tree's nutrients while the tree is still alive. (Why are mushrooms on trees?)
Fungus is fascinating organisms, it plays roles more than just food, medicine or decomposers. They are different from plants, animals or bacteria but they did have great importance in our life. However, some fungus can somehow be harmful to people such as the disease called athlete’s foot( even though not deadly, still a disease).

My 10 observations are all about plants and insects(basically 5 flowers and 5 insects), according to my observation, there is a kind of relationship called mutualism commonly existing between bees and flowers. And I will address that in detail in the next paragraph of my journal.
In both of the bees observations I selected, two different species of bees are flying around the flowers and why do bees love flowers so much? The answer is pretty simple, bees need nectar to survive. But on the other hand, the pollen is also picked up when the bees are fed on nectar. in that way, the pollen can be carried long-distancing and it helps to reproduce remotely. Such a kind of mutual relationship could exist between bees and flowers because of natural selection. If someday the number of bees dropped considerably, the number of flowers will go down to balance the whole ecosystem. Until someday the number of bees comes back to normal again, the number of flowers will also increase to the previous value. In that case, the eco-system can adapt itself (self-healing) but that capability is limited.
It should come to us that we should protect the planet we are living on. Humans are one of the millions of species on earth, we are a part of the ecosystem and nothing special from other species. If we do too much damage that exceeds the capacity of self-healing, nobody can get rid of the bad outcomes even if we are on the top of the food chain.