Without the fungi, our planet would be very different. Picture Earth with only a few stunted plants and watery environments choked with the remains of dead organisms. Fungi do much of Earth’s garbage disposal. Fungi not only help clean up the landscape and form soil, but also play a key role in recycling mineral nutrients. Furthermore, the colonization of the terrestrial environment was made possible in large part by associations that fungi formed with land plants and other organisms.
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Were it not for saprobic fungi, Earth’s carbon cycle would fail.
A lichen is a complex mutualism between fungi and a photosynthetic microorganism.
Mycorrhizae are mutualistic associations between fungi and the roots of vascular plants.