
Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms - wozniacki
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/07/long-before-trees-overtook-the-land-earth-was-covered-by-giant-mushrooms/
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ChuckMcM
What an interesting idea, I can't help but visualize Zangermarsh[1] :-)
Interesting question about what it might gain evolutionarily by being tall,
perhaps more moisture exposure but as others have pointed out fungal mats get
that by just being wide and covering a lot of area. Of course if you were
competing with a fungal mat being tall might be one strategy.

[1] Its a World of Warcraft zone

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100k0s
The fruiting body of a fungus is typically a reproductive mechanism. Bigger
mushroom = more spores (ie. size does matter).

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Scriptor
And by taller than others the spores would be more likely to be carried over
everything else by the wind and travel further distances. A short mushroom's
spores might end up only traveling a few feet before hitting, say, another
mushroom.

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ISL
Relevant Nature Future:

[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7413/full/488690a...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7413/full/488690a.html)

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johnpmayer
Powerful short (micro) story! Yet one must suspect that life would have found
its own way.

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Symmetry
I wonder what those fungus lived on? This was in the era before fungus could
metabolize cellulose. Maybe, unlike modern fungus, they just grew bit by bit?
The fact that dead wood couldn't easily be digested is part of the reason the
Earth's O2 level was so high back in the day, and why you could get coal or
oil deposits even without anoxic conditions.

EDIT: All interesting information above from friends who know way more about
the subject than me, who I told about the article. Any mistakes are probably
mine.

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yxhuvud
Was there really a lot of cellulose to consume that early? Remember, no trees
so no dead wood to consume.

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rz2k
This discussion has a pretty amazing number of references to fantasy or
science fiction worlds. I count eight so far.

* WoW - Zangermarsh

* Elder Scrolls - Vvardenfell

* StarCraft - Mutalisks

* Smurfs

* Mario Brothers

* Jules Verne - _Journey to the Center of the Earth_

* Miyazaki - _Nausicaa and the Valley of the Winds_

* Paul Stamet - _Mycelium Running_

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ne0codex
Don't forget: * Minecraft - Mushroom Biome

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pachydermic
That's awesome. It _must_ have been a giant mushroom, because that's the
coolest possible outcome. It's like I'm in Vvardenfell all over again...

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patrickg_zill
Am I just a huge anime nerd, or did anyone else immediately think of the early
Miyazaki film "Nausicaa and the Valley of the Winds"?

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eksith
Nope, I thought the same!

 _Spoiler_ Good thing we weren't around to poison the Earth back then or these
would be sprouting toxins like no one's business.

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FrankenPC
So... Jules Verne was right about YET ANOTHER thing? RE: Ancient giant
mushrooms dotting the shore of the prehistoric coast in Journey to the Center
of the Earth.

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rquantz
Of course, he was also wrong about a lot of things. I recall in 20,000 Leagues
they travel under the Antarctic ice all the way over the pole... because there
was no land there in 1870, I guess.

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fit2rule
We don't know that there isn't a way to go under the Antarctic ice mass ..
there may well be large enough rivers under the ice, navigable with fancy
machines.

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jostmey
Why is it assumed that these mushrooms would grow straight and tall? Trees
grow tall to maximize their exposure to their primary energy source, which is
of course light. But why would a mushroom need to grow really tall. Don't they
obtain all their energy from the land?

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draq
Exposure to air. The higher, the windier, the farther the spores get.

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blacksmith_tb
Plausible, but not apparently a problem from most fungi currently alive. I
would guess that the trade-off in terms of marshaling resources vs. increase
in spore distribution would not be favorable enough. I expect that's why the
lichen argument appeared - we can easily see why being tall is a plus for
photosynthesis.

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retrogradeorbit
Actually reading the article, came across:

"So science is messy, and despite more than a century of digging, we still
don’t really know, for sure, what these huge spires that dominated the ancient
Earth really were."

So despite the link-bait title, we still don't know and they may not be giant
mushrooms.

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lmm
Sure, we're not certain, but giant mushrooms are our best guess.

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opinali
Smurfs were real, and normal size! It's the mushrooms that were big enough to
carve houses inside.

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triplesec
Don't forget the huge Oregon Fungus, an Armillaria ostoyae which is the
world's largest organism
[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=strange-
but...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-
largest-organism-is-fungus)

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bayesianhorse
Giant living spires? Better watch out for mutalisks then ...

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huhalu
Interesting. Could fungi photosynthesize? I thought not. Unless the earth was
covered as a marshland, it would be unlikely mushrooms covered earth. It is
likely they are popular around coastal area.

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jccooper
No known fungus does--though there are "radiotrophic" fungus, that use gamma
radiation as an energy source.

However, fungus are found with photosynthetic symbionts. Lichen, for example,
are a combination of fungus and algae (or similar). It's possible the
Prototaxites were giant lichen, which would allow them to live in non-fungus-
friendly locales, rather like a tree.

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redwood
As these broke down and broke down other things around them, they probably
created _soil_ (as funguses still help to do) which enabled more advanced
plant life to thrive. Love it

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NN88
I guess now might be a good time to mention John Marco Allegro's theories on
the amanita muscaria and its role influencing major religions:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Allegro](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Allegro)

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mcv
Cool! I've often imagined alien worlds that had nothing resembling plants or
animals, and they invariably ended up with giant fungi. Turns out many of the
craziest life forms we can imagine have already existed on Earth.

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muloka
I first heard about this in Paul Stamet's book Mycelium Running.

Its too bad they include this period of Earth's history more prominently in
high school.

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ChrisArchitect
It's a mushroom, It's a fungus, And they're growing all around us and among us

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Apocryphon
Makes one wonder if the pipes in Super Mario Bros. led to not where- but when?

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rickyconnolly
Dude in article pic looks like he's an expert on mushrooms

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krrishd
The first thing that came to mind: Minecraft.

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basyt
har har morrowind har har...

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ffrryuu
Back then, gravity was a lot less, so soft bodies can grow huge. Now they
can't.

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retrogradeorbit
Seems there's no acceptance round here for the possibility of the Expanding
Earth Theory...

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ffrryuu
Tech people tends to be close minded.

