whittily OP t1_iu045km wrote on October 27, 2022 at 3:54 PM

Reply to comment by Plane_Pea5434 in How is the size of giant fungal organisms determined? by whittily

Seems like burden of proof that it’s the same organism would need to be higher than just matching DNA. Isn’t it possible for a fungus to reproduce in ways that multiple organisms would have the same DNA?

atomfullerene t1_iu0w1zp wrote on October 27, 2022 at 6:54 PM

Having the same DNA is pretty much the thing that defines what makes up a fungus organism.

Fungal colonies are big networks of filaments that spread through the soil (or something else) and grow by cells dividing and making more fungal cells. So if you get the same genetic signature, you know the cells must be different branches of that same fungal network. There's not really "individual organisms" in these fungus the way there is in animals, it's just what is genetically a part of the original colony, or what's a new colony produced by sexual reproduction.

whittily OP t1_iu19ww2 wrote on October 27, 2022 at 8:23 PM

Got it! Thank you for your responses. I need to do a deeper dive into fungal reproduction it sounds like.

Fungi get graded on a curve then compared to animals/plants when measuring total organism mass then. It’s a little like saying all banana trees are the same organism since they’re all asexually reproduced with the same dna.

atomfullerene t1_iu1b71l wrote on October 27, 2022 at 8:32 PM

Well, it's the same as Pando for example. Or coral heads. People don't usually count bananas because they aren't all connected to each other, but the fungus probably is (there's probably no way to verify that, but it's what you would expect)

[deleted] t1_iu0c84l wrote on October 27, 2022 at 4:47 PM

[removed]

whittily OP t1_iu0cuhk wrote on October 27, 2022 at 4:51 PM

Indeed—the details of what I don’t understand are included in my questions :) appreciate your contribution tho!