Whales and Fungi
Hi!
A quick welcome to the first issue of my newsletter!
To be honest, I've been procrastinating on sending this because of fear, but now it's sent the rest should be easy, right?
I've been thinking a lot about whales and fungi lately. Which seems like an odd combination, and I had to look up whether they would be in contact with each other. Turns out there is a huge amount of fungi that live in the ocean. That's something I'm going to have to find out a bit more about.
It started when I read Why Whales Matter More Than Ever in the Fight Against Climate Change by Ricky Lanusse on Medium, where he writes about whales being a huge benefit of Earth's ecosystem. They:
Contribute at least 50% of all oxygen to our atmosphere
Cut out 33 tons of CO2 (per whale on average)
Move nutrients around the ocean, from deep in the ocean to the surface, and from rich feeding grounds to nutrient-poor feeding grounds
And when they die their bodies sink to the ocean floor providing more support to the deep-sea ecosystem.
(Information abbreviated from Ricky Lanusse's article above.)
Fungi also have huge benefits to the ecosystem of Earth.
They help decompose organic matter
Store carbon
Build up soil structure
Live with and often co-evolve with plant species.
And then you can (or at least I can) get lost in reading about mycelium and mycorrhizal networks, which are underground networks created by fungi connecting them to other plants to share resources helping each other survive.
There are so many things we're still learning about fungi, like how they can help us medically. And the last seven years there have been studies into fungi being able to break down polyethylene, a type of commonly used plastic.
Size is another similarity between the two organisms. The Blue Whale is the largest living creature on Earth, and somewhat recently a fungus has been discovered in Oregon that has grown to over 2,200 acres.
Both whales and fungi still have a lot of secrets we have no idea about. Which I find pretty amazing seeing as they're both so large and integral to the way our world functions.
A few months ago I wrote a story on Medium with tips on taking photos of fungi. Back when I wrote it, it was Autumn in Australia and perfect fungi season. Now that the other side of the world is entering Autumn it might be more useful to some of you if you're heading out to take photos of your favourite fungi.
I'd love to see any fungi photos you take if you're posting them anywhere.
You can find me:
ART
SOCIAL MEDIA
