Biologists have long known mushrooms of the genus Mycena, commonly known as bonnet mushrooms, as fungi that live off of dead trees and plants. New research from the University of Copenhagen demonstrates that bonnets can also find their ways into young, healthy trees and plants, where they try to cooperate. In doing so, they have made an evolutionary leap which challenges our understanding of the ecological roles of fungi.
We are nature making non nature things with industry. It took the industrial revolution to push us to where we are with climate change and pollution.
but how is human industry unnatural when termite mounds, anthills, beehives, and beaver dams are natural?
Well, a beaver dam helps the natural environment by creating water habitats for other creatures. Humans create chemicals that don’t break down forever, plastics that break down over centuries that include microplastics that are now in our bloodstreams and in in whales stomachs. Does any of that human stuff sound like it is natural?
Beaver dams are only helpful because other organisms have learned to make use of that niche. There are already bacteria which have learned how to consume plastics, and others which have been shown to break down oil spills. Nature can fix anything we throw at it, given enough time. Humans may go extinct because we can’t adapt fast enough to the changing conditions, but something else will always come along eventually that can make use of the waste we create.
rats and many birds are prime examples of species that have already adapted to human cities, and would you look at that they’re EXTREMELY successful and have colonized the entire earth along with us.
I’m not saying every part of humanity is bad. Certain parts definitely are and while nature will adapt to some of it, but we are on pace to drive many species to extinction. For all the successful adaptation to our actions the are hundreds and hundreds that don’t and if we do that to enough keystone species then the ecosystem could collapse.