Antarctic mushrooms

[Sola]

I was just wondering whether fungus had been observed in Antarctica and came across this .

Thought there might be a few interested people here, the mycelium feasting on petroleum waste could be particularly useful.

The actual article is much longer but I thought this bit summed it up pretty well.

Hope others find this interesting as well......

Before Blanchette, no mycologist had documented any wood-degrading fungi native to Antarctica. After all, fungi generally prefer warmth, and no trees have grown on the frozen continent for millions of years. But when Blanchette compared the DNA of the fungi discovered at the explorer huts with a database of known species, he found three types of fungi that were clearly distinct from any temperate species that the explorers or later visitors might have brought with them.

It appears, then, that the three huts are being attacked, in part, by native species. Scott, who commanded the first British-led expedition in 1901-4, built the oldest of the three at McMurdo Sound. "The discomfort of the hut was a byword on the Expedition," recalled Shackleton, who served as Scott's lieutenant on the ship Discovery. The group came within 530 miles of the South Pole, but had to be rescued by ships dispatched by the British Admiralty when Discovery got trapped in ice.

Shackleton had higher regard for the base camp that his own 1907-9 expedition erected at Cape Royds, 23 miles north of Scott's hut. "Here the whole shore party lived in comfort through the winter of 1908," he wrote. In early 1909, Shackleton's party left the shelter for the 850-mile trek to the pole but stopped 97 miles short when they grew low on rations. (A Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsen nearly three years later would be the first to reach the pole.)

Scott built the third hut at Cape Evans during his ill-fated 1910-13 expedition, when all five members of his team perished from cold and starvation. It would prove crucial for Shackleton in 1915, when some of his men became stranded. "The hut became the permanent living quarters for the ten marooned men," Shackleton wrote.

Blanchette and his team have traveled to Antarctica each of the past nine years to collect hut samples and test ways of preserving them. Back in the lab, the researchers put bits of infected wood into petri dishes filled with a nutrient-rich gel that coaxes the fungi out of the wood and encourages growth.

Blanchette then transplanted the growing samples onto pieces of pine, birch and spruce—woods used in the Antarctic huts—to see if the lab wood would similarly decay. Then, comparing DNA from the Antarctic samples of fungi with that of known species, Blanchette and his team deduced they had found three new species. He will carry out additional taxonomic study to make sure.

In any event, Blanchette says he's delighted to be studying some "really tough fungi," capable of eking out an existence in one of the planet's most inhospitable environments. He speculates the fungi lived off penguin guano, moss, lichen and material in the soil until the explorers arrived and provided a veritable feast—the first wood Antarctica had seen in eons.

Blanchette and his team have advised the Antarctic Heritage Trust about protecting the huts. Because fungi need moisture, the researchers recommended clearing out a century's worth of accumulated ice under Shackleton's hut (revealing stores of whiskey in the process) and removing 100 tons of snow and ice that accumulate annually behind Scott's hut at Cape Evans.

Blanchette, meanwhile, made another observation: one species of Antarctic fungus appears to be feasting on petroleum spilled from leaky fuel containers that Scott left behind at Cape Evans. If so, Blanchette speculates that the fungus—or enzymes extracted from it—could be put to work digesting petroleum spills.

That's what Blanchette says he loves about his work—the unexpected developments and the surprising resilience of life. No matter the environment, he says, "we're always finding great fungi."

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Digs-Finding-Feisty-Fungi.html#ixzz1LkcieS4N

[mescalito]

Yeah I'm sure I recently saw this on a Doco!

You know they are Aliens don't you?

[Sola]

It is possible, just when they may have arrived is contentious, they have just as much chance of coming from a meteor/ comet

as the micro-organisms that were around 4 billion years ago that has since given rise to us and all the other life forms.

But it's just as possible that both originated on Earth and have been existing and reproducing for a long time.

[themushroombloke]

dont know if this is true but apparently the only thing that can enter the earths atmosphere is mushroom spores...... So they may well be alien drifting around the universe looking for food. Oh crap does that mean I've been eating aliens, cause they'll be mighty pissed come d-day.

[Sola]

I'm pretty sure it's micro-organisms of various kinds, i.e. bacteria, it would be awesome if spores did arrive on a comet

that would prove there are sources of mycelium food elsewhere in the universe. Whether that's wood or guano or lichen as in

the Antarctic example there would still have to be a food source, I'm presuming, for the mycelial life to develop and live on.