[HN Gopher] Three reasons fungi are not plants
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Three reasons fungi are not plants
Author : chewbacha
Score : 115 points
Date : 2021-01-18 18:23 UTC (4 hours ago)
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| doublerabbit wrote:
| I highly recommend the book: Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake.
| [1]
|
| He goes in to all studies even down to the point that mushrooms,
| fungi have their own kind of "internet" that communicate to
| trees, plants and even to having their own commence.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entangled_Life
| cambalache wrote:
| Why are we promoting a white man's article?
|
| BTW this is sarcasm, but judging by the author's corpus of
| articles this is the kind of question he would love to see raised
| (Except about him of course)
| dehrmann wrote:
| > "Plants grow and live; Animals grow, live and feel."
|
| Even this gets complicated as we learn more. Some plants like
| Venus fly traps obviously feel. The fresh-cut grass smell is a
| signal to other plants that the grass is in distress, and people
| are theorizing trees communicate through roots.
|
| Meanwhile, oysters don't have a central nervous system.
| chewbacha wrote:
| I think this is a quote from Linneaus and not the thrust of the
| article. In fact, it's one of the original arguments for
| classifying fungi as plants and not closer to animals.
| rand_r wrote:
| > The fresh-cut grass smell is a signal to other plants that
| the grass is in distress
|
| This is really interesting. Signalling to other plants for what
| purpose? I'd like to read more about it.
| lasfter wrote:
| I highly recommend The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter
| Wohlleben. Trees signal their neighbours of incoming dangers
| so they have to time to e.g. pump tannins into their leaves
| to deter animals that would munch on them.
| yters wrote:
| How do we know venus fly traps feel?
| lmkg wrote:
| A flytrap closes in response to tactile stimuli. Meaning that
| it has a sense of touch.
|
| The word "feel" is nebulous, but at least one meaning would
| include that.
| derekp7 wrote:
| A mouse trap also responds to tactile stimuli.
| elcomet wrote:
| A mousetrap doesn't live and grow though. So what's your
| point ?
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| But it's not repeatable.
| tshaddox wrote:
| A solar-powered one with an actuator to reset itself
| probably isn't too difficult to build.
| [deleted]
| the_af wrote:
| It definitely has a sensor-like mechanism, but is it
| qualitatively different to some plants growing to face the
| sun, or a climbing plant climbing up a wall?
|
| I've had flytraps and they are fascinating, though I've
| found them to be very fragile, at least in the conditions I
| can provide in my balcony. Their traps often turn black and
| rot after trying to digest a single fly, and I had one
| Venus flytrap die after flowering (the advice I found
| online was: don't let it flower, under most less than ideal
| conditions, the effort of producing the flower will spend
| the plant's energy reserves and kill it, and the single
| flower it can produce is not pretty anyway. I should have
| followed this advice, but curiosity got the better of me).
| Retric wrote:
| It's more complex than simple sensor, it's effectively
| counting numbers of impacts before it responds.
| https://www.newscientist.com/article/2074582-venus-
| flytrap-c...
| the_af wrote:
| Yes, the counting part is mentioned in the brief summary
| at Wikipedia, and I find it fascinating. I wonder if it's
| some kind of cummulative chemical effect that wears off
| in a short time, but if it passes a threshold it triggers
| something.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > It definitely has a sensor-like mechanism, but is it
| qualitatively different to some plants growing to face
| the sun, or a climbing plant climbing up a wall?
|
| Are you able to prove that your behavior is qualitatively
| different? That you are not merely a sufficiently complex
| chain of reactions to stimuli?
| yters wrote:
| I can program a video game character to respond to getting
| shot. Does it feel?
| simondw wrote:
| If I said yes, how would you prove me wrong?
| yters wrote:
| Do my thoughts have feelings? If I imagine someone being
| torture to death, has someone actually just been tortured
| to death, all the while feeling excruciating pain? Crazy
| implications if true!
| opsy2 wrote:
| Yup, from the article sounds like such thinking has been thrown
| out for a while.
|
| Rather than basing on loosely defined observed traits like if
| something 'feels', we now have the context of evolution to
| guide our taxa.
| fatsdomino001 wrote:
| Incidentally the people theorizing about trees communicating
| through roots are actually saying trees are communicating via
| webs of root-connected fungi which act as the connections in
| between the trees. It's literally underground tunnels of fungi
| (mycelia) within which the chemical signals are transferred.
| Colloquially referred to as the Wood Wide Web; technically it's
| networks of mycorrhizal fungi.
| jbaber wrote:
| This is so completely mainstream that the first I heard of it
| was a recent _The Magic Schoolbus_ episode.
| dfox wrote:
| I think that that dichotomy is obviously wrong. More useful
| dichotomy between animals and "not-animals" involves capability
| of locomotion, which is something that althought not strictly
| correct can at least be observed from outside of the system in
| question.
| theli0nheart wrote:
| >> _"Plants grow and live; Animals grow, live and feel."_
|
| >
|
| > _Even this gets complicated as we learn more. Some plants
| like Venus fly traps obviously feel. The fresh-cut grass smell
| is a signal to other plants that the grass is in distress, and
| people are theorizing trees communicate through roots._
|
| This quote, as noted in the beginning of the article, is
| attributed to Carl Linnaeus, and subsequently invalidated. As
| far as I can tell, the author was not attempting to defend this
| point-of-view, as it's been superseded by modern taxonomic
| classifications.
| gus_massa wrote:
| Oysters have a central nervous system, with three ganglia:
| http://www.manandmollusc.net/advanced_introduction/bivalve_n...
|
| If you look carefully, it is very similar to the neural system
| in any bilateral https://www.britannica.com/science/nervous-
| system/Diffuse-ne... . It is twisted following the deformation
| of the body inside the shell. Compare it with
| https://entomology.unl.edu/charts/nervous.shtml
|
| In our central nervous system one of the ganglia grow tooooooo
| much. Moreover, the olfactory part of it grow
| tooooooooooooooooooooooooo much.
| Florin_Andrei wrote:
| Freshwater hydra are probably closer to a topology that was
| never truly centralized.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(genus)#Nervous_system
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Now we know(?) why smells are so directly wired to emotions
| quiescant_dodo wrote:
| Pointing out that plants react to external stimuli is
| interesting. But using "feel" is an emotionally-loaded word.
|
| Additionally, although oysters (and at least dozens of other
| species of animals) lack a CNS, they also react to external
| stimuli. In fact, oysters are used in some water systems as
| sophisticated water quality detectors, e.g. in San Diego
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJJz15N1KEY .
| davidscolgan wrote:
| My partner showed me the book The Hidden Life of Trees:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/1771642483/
|
| It suggests that trees may have some kind of hive
| intelligence in their roots and through the fungal networks
| they can communicate and share resources. It isn't something
| that I've investigated in a ton of detail but the ideas seem
| scientifically informed.
| filoeleven wrote:
| I haven't read the book either; it's on my list. I do hope
| it gives fungal networks their due--other research points
| to the fungi being the ones who decide how to share the
| resources, in essence farming the trees. It's a mutualistic
| relationship that upwards of 90% of plant species
| participate in. The book Entangled Life, which I haven't
| read yet either, looks at things more from this
| perspective.
|
| The answer probably lies somewhere in the middle. Rather
| than viewing trees as a hive intelligence, I think it's
| plausible that we've been missing the forest as a whole
| organism. Perhaps "ecosystem" just means "an organism that
| is bigger than any one of us."
| bch wrote:
| Does our using an oyster as a tool "prove" they have feelings
| though? We use litmus paper to determine (a certain) quality
| of water too.
| quiescant_dodo wrote:
| As the sibling commented, there's really no proof to
| feeling. You can remark that something reacts to the
| environment. And we can use sophisticated tools to
| approximate things (e.g. brain MRI can see which parts of
| the brain "light up" in response to certain things).
|
| I don't know of any way to prove feeling. It seems like a
| solipsistic trap. I _believe_ that most animals "feel", and
| _believe_ that no plants/fungus do...but it is merely
| belief that I don't think to be testable.
| agumonkey wrote:
| And if reaction is a defining factor then all chemical
| reactions are solid friendships.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| We don't really have a means of measuring whether something
| 'feels' in any meaningful sense of the word other than by
| judging from its reactions to stimuli.
|
| Hell, I can't even tell that _you_ 'feel' anything. I only
| know that _I_ 'feel' because I am able to subjectively
| experience it. I make the assumption that you feel because
| you appear to be very much like me in all other respects,
| however there is no objective measurement that can prove or
| disprove that assumption. Historically, not every culture
| even gave all human beings the benefit of the doubt on that,
| let alone animals (which contemporary western cultures at
| least often agree do 'feel').
|
| Where you draw the line is seemingly arbitrary. Some might
| say that means there isn't one, that either we're all
| P-zombies (or at least everyone who isn't me is), or we live
| in a panpsychic universe. Of course, the universe has often
| resisted such black and white categorizations.
|
| Consider this then: why do we care? I submit that the only
| reason we care whether or not something 'feels' is so we can
| exploit it without guilt, so we can shield our empathy from
| the consequences of our actions. I feel it is important to
| keep this in mind when making decisions which hinge on
| questions like whether or not something can truly 'feel'.
| firebaze wrote:
| If oysters - lacking a CNS - react to external stimuli and
| quite probably "feel" something, even something as basic as
| lack of food, shouldn't we abandon the idea to live without
| hurting some other living being?
|
| Even in the most ideal circumstances we kill other beings
| simply due to resource consumption. Maybe not now, but in the
| future - what we consume isn't available to them. Even if you
| claim the resources we consume aren't food to the food
| species of your choice, due to the law of increasing entropy
| we definitely shorten the lifetime of whatever comes after us
| just by existing.
|
| Hardcore buddhists for example consider all life equally
| worthy. No karma bonus for vegans, maybe less than for non-
| vegetarians who buy only from farms which provide a healthy,
| livable life to the livestock (or, obviously, for the plants)
| rsync wrote:
| "If oysters - lacking a CNS - react to external stimuli and
| quite probably "feel" something, even something as basic as
| lack of food, shouldn't we abandon the idea to live without
| hurting some other living being?"
|
| Some have already abandoned that idea. I quote Joseph
| Campbell[1]:
|
| "Life lives on life. This is the sense of the symbol of the
| Ouroboros, the serpent biting its tail. Everything that
| lives lives on the death of something else."
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell
| brodie wrote:
| I've always felt that sustaining oneself with the life
| another animal or plant or whatever is the ultimate sign
| of respect and should be considered an almost sacred act.
| bartvk wrote:
| I'm not sure if I'm following you. Who exactly has the idea
| to live without hurting some other living being?
| filoeleven wrote:
| Amusingly enough, saprotrophic fungi come the closest to
| putting this idea into practice. Their enzymes externally
| digest decaying matter, I.e. the disorganized jumble of
| proteins and nutrients "left over" from dead organisms.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Maybe sponges would have been a better example than oysters.
| AareyBaba wrote:
| Meanwhile, the sea squirt eats it's brain.
|
| "The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for
| a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home
| for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous system.
| When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its
| brain anymore, so it eats it! It's rather like getting tenure."
| - Daniel Dennett
| pfdietz wrote:
| What's fascinating here is that tunicates (like sea squirts)
| are thought to be the closest relatives to vertebrates,
| closer even than amphioxus. They just went down a radically
| different path, perhaps because their chemical defenses
| against predation are so effective, so they could brutally
| optimize away things like brains.
|
| https://www.nhbs.com/across-the-bridge-book
| bigiain wrote:
| > so they could brutally optimize away things like brains
|
| Youtube Twitter Facebook et al. provide fairly convincing
| circumstantial evidence that homo sapiens is doing the
| same...
| nextos wrote:
| All this stuff gets much simpler and much more objective when you
| look at genomes and build phylogenetic trees. There fungi look
| like a branch on their own. That's also how archaea were
| discovered as a separate domain, not just a kingdom.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Not that much simpler; we end up abandoning a simple tree
| structure and end up building a web when we have to start
| including horizontal gene transfer.
| 7357 wrote:
| Reason 1: Fungi Lack Chloroplasts
|
| Reason 2: Fungi Have a Unique Mode of Acquiring Nutrients
|
| Reason 3: Molecular Evidence Demonstrates Fungi Are More Closely
| Related to Animals Than to Plants
| uniqueid wrote:
| A good follow-up to this article is Joel Spolsky's internet-
| famous 'Leaky Abstractions' essay.
|
| https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/11/11/the-law-of-leaky-a...
|
| The universe doesn't care what sections of it we consider to be
| organic or inorganic, one creature or multiple creatures, alive
| or dead, one species or another, sentient or not. In the end,
| they're all leaky abstractions.
| firebaze wrote:
| I'd not be surprised if we learn in $time_unit that everything
| in the universe is life. The variable is - like in relativity -
| the experience of time, not _if_ something is alive (as opposed
| to moving in relativity). It may be close to zero from our
| perspective, so quite hard to spot, but we get better
| measurements with more time.
| pygy_ wrote:
| Imperfect as they are, these abstractions impact the universe
| though, through our thoughts and actions, and getting them
| wrong can have dramatic consequences.
|
| Thinking in terms of composable attributes maps the world a lot
| better than dichotomic, essential taxonomy (composition >
| inheritance in the CS world).
|
| Taxonomy is a premature optimization that comes intuitively
| because it's been selected by evolution since it was good
| enough for most purposes.
| tomgp wrote:
| I recently finished Merlin Sheldrake's "Entangled Life" which I
| _highly_ recomend to anyone interested in finding out more about
| these fascinating organisms. Really changed the way I see the
| world. My family are getting pretty bored of the fungus facts
| that I trot out as we go on our daily socially distanced walks
| through our local woods.
| tyingq wrote:
| I was expecting "don't need sunlight" and "do consume/need
| oxygen", though I suppose those are offshoots of what was listed.
| simosx wrote:
| There is evidence of fungi appearing over 1 billion years ago
| [1].
|
| Plants first appeared around 400 million years ago or later [2].
| In fact, early plants required symbiosis with fungi to grow. Even
| now, plants grow better if they have symbiosis with fungi and
| most plants (such as tomatoes) can grow symbiotically with fungi.
| But it is cheaper to use fertilizers, and those are used instead.
| Still, forest ecosystems still depend on fungi and require them
| as a way to recycle plant material (fallen leaves, dead plants
| and trees).
|
| Evolutionary, fungi existed well before plants managed to evolve.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_fungi
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_history_of_plants
| kuprel wrote:
| Then why do plants branch off sooner than fungi?
|
| https://www.onezoom.org/life.html
| peanutz454 wrote:
| The common ancestor basically tells us who we are related to
| more, but does not tell you when they branched out. So we are
| more closely related to fungus than to almonds, and that is
| what we learn from the tree of life. But the common ancestor
| of plants were born after the common ancestor of fungus.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| What did they devour before plant created organics? Other
| fungi? Organic precursors occurring naturally by chemistry?
| pfdietz wrote:
| Photosynthetic bacteria existed long before plants, which are
| eukaryotes.
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