Nutrition type

Unlike plants, fungi have no chlorophyll. They can't photosynthesize, which means they can't make their own sugars (energy) from sunlight and carbon dioxide. In terms of nutrition they are heterotrophs (like animals) — they need ready-made organic food.

But fungi can't swallow food. They release powerful enzymes into their surroundings, dissolve organic matter into simple molecules, and then absorb them through the entire surface of their mycelium.

Three survival strategies

According to David Arora and modern mycology, depending on whom or what a fungus takes this ready-made organic matter from, all macrofungi fall into three large groups:

1. Mycorrhizal fungi (symbionts): "Honest traders". They wrap around the roots of living trees and trade water and minerals for plant sugars. This group includes most forest delicacies (porcini, chanterelles, saffron milk caps).

2. Saprotrophs: "The forest's cleaners". They feed only on dead organic matter (fallen leaves, humus, dead trees, dung). Ecologically these are the most useful fungi, because they turn debris into fertile soil. (Agaricus mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, parasols).

3. Parasites: "Predators". They settle on living organisms (trees, insects, other fungi), drain their juices and eventually kill their host. (Honey fungus, many bracket fungi).

Why does this matter to a forager?

Knowing a mushroom's nutrition type is the key to finding and growing it.

- If you know the slippery jack is a mycorrhizal partner of pine, you'll never go looking for it in an oak forest or on a bare pasture.

- If you want to grow mushrooms on a balcony or in your garden, you need to understand that a mycorrhizal porcini can't be grown in a pot (it needs a living oak or pine), while saprotrophic Agaricus mushrooms grow easily on a bag of compost.

Sources

1.Зерова М.Я. та ін. Визначник грибів України. 1979
2.Roger Phillips. Mushrooms (Roger Phillips)
3.David Arora. Mushrooms Demystified
4.Index Fungorum