Edit: looking at all the elaborate replies, I cannot help being amazed. Here I thought the Fedi is overrepresented by computer geeks (such as yours truly) but obviously they've got NOTHING on the biologically inclined here! 🥰😍

If poisonous mushrooms are poisonous because it is advantageous for the survival of the specific species, are non poisonous mushroom relatively speaking weaker, less well equipped for the furthering of their species? I suppose that the ability to survive and further a species is multifaceted and that being poisonous or the lack thereof is just one of many parameters?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 5 points 2 days ago (1 child)

Well, there’s poisonous, toxic and indigestible. Various things can be one of those three to various other things; since mushrooms came first, you’ll find that most of them tend to be toxic to other organisms that haven’t evolved to consume them. Also, it’s good to differentiate between the mycelium and the fruit; often the mushroom fruits ARE poisonous to mammals because they propagate by airborne spores, so the poison evolved as a protection against being eaten before they could spore.

Other mushrooms depend on other features for their survival, from looking like a poisonous mushroom, to not fruiting, to making digestion by an animal part of their reproductive process.

There’s probably more variety in the mushroom kingdom than there is in the animal kingdom.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago*

    the mushroom is the reproductive, of mostly mychorrizae type fungi, there are other ones arbuscular(associated with trees), if you want get into niche like mycoheterotrophic plants, they have thier own unique interactions. orchids, some heather "Families".

    theres even a rare parasitic conifer in new caledonia that uses a combination of mycoheterotrophs and something like mistletoe form of parasitism.

  • source
  • parent