From mushrooms to mold, mushrooms comprise an enormous diversity and occur practically all over the world. Some grow in the forest, others on house walls or even on our skin. Some types of mushrooms contribute to the production of life and drugs, others make us sick. In an interview, fungal researcher Christiane Baschien reveals how mushrooms influence our lives, how they use us and how they harm us.
Mushrooms occur everywhere on our planet, but mushroom is not the same mushroom. Some are useful, others make us sick. In an interview, mushroom researcher Christiane Baschien reveals why mushrooms are curse and blessings equally, why people cannot do without them and who is their favorite. Baschien is curator at the Leibniz Institute DSMZ-German collection for microorganisms and cell cultures and heads the working group health-related fungi. She is also a lecturer for microbiology at the Technical University of Braunschweig.
What should you know about mushrooms?
That mushrooms are neither animals nor plants, but form their own empire within the organisms. That mushrooms are not only bad, but also have many positive properties. And you don’t have to be afraid of mushrooms. Some mushrooms also taste good.
Where do we find mushrooms everywhere?
We really find mushrooms everywhere. What we see as a mushroom on the forest floor is often only the fruit base of the mushroom, which it forms when it becomes colder in autumn and the moisture increases. Mushrooms, with the exception of the yeasts, are actually all thread -shaped, and the braid of their threads, the Myzel, lies, for example, in the forest underground. 80 percent of all land plants live in symbiosis with these underground fungi about their roots. Mushrooms are also the destructors of our world. So they break down organic material, including complex organic material such as wood or leaves. If we had no mushrooms, the fabric circuits in our water and water would not work.
Molds are generally considered harmful to health. How can mushrooms support our everyday life and our health?
Molds can be harmful to health. They occur in poorly renovated apartments or on food. There are also skin mushrooms that grow at around 30 degrees Celsius. And if it comes very badly and your own immune system is weakened, mushrooms can colonize people. Mushrooms can not only “affect” plants, but also plants and cause billions in crops every year and make food production more difficult. On the other hand, we also produce antibiotics from certain mushrooms that help us combat diseases, such as penicillin.
Mushrooms are indispensable from our everyday life: Our “favorite yeast” is called Saccharomyces Cerevisiae and delivers Co2 As a baking aid when baking bread and cake or fermented alcohol in beer and wine for us. Mushrooms are also used for cheese production. The Camembert is famous, in which Penicillium Camemberti forms the protective layer around the cheese, so to speak. This protective layer prevents other microorganisms from penetrating into the cheese and makes it more durable.
Of course you can also simply eat a lot of mushrooms, they are a good source of protein and an alternative if you want to do without meat. There are a variety of mushrooms that can also be bred. Secondary metabolites are also examined by mushrooms that could be useful as a dietary supplement.
Which is your favorite one and why?
Actually, it is a group of mushrooms, namely the aquatic mushrooms. They look particularly. In order to be able to refer to leaves in the water, you have spores, the so -called storage pores, which are branched several times. The spores of the aquatic mushrooms have beautiful characteristic shapes and are also relatively large. They have a size of 20 to 300 micrometers and are therefore easy to detect under the microscope.
What fascinates you most about mushrooms?
The Hallimasch, for example, has a mycelium that can shine in the dark. The enzyme luciferase shines green like glowworms that use the same enzyme to shine. And then you see a tree stump on which the fungus grows in the nightly forest. That is a fascinating thing. I am also fascinated by what mushrooms can do – mushrooms are incredibly diverse and are also used incredibly diverse. If you see how they ensure that our world looks like our world looks like it looks, then it is simply fascinating.
Source: Leibniz Institute DSMZ-German collection of microorganisms and Zellkulturen GmbH