permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>]

The thinking is that these "fungi" lived off of bryophytes and other early 
land organisms: "a biologically heterogeneous mosaic of primary producers." 
Big things can be made by consuming little things (look at baleen whales). 
They needn't have consumed trees, altho I had the same response that you did. 
Taxonomically, they do seem to be fungi. Here's an abstract of the original 
article from the journal "Geology."
http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/35/5/399.abstract
Devonian landscape heterogeneity recorded by a giant fungus
C. Kevin Boyce1, Carol L. Hotton2, Marilyn L. Fogel3, George D. Cody3,Robert 
M. Hazen3, Andrew H. Knoll4 and Francis M. Hueber5
+Author Affiliations

1Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, 5734 South 
Ellis Ave., Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
2Department of Paleobiology, NHB MRC 121, National Museum of Natural History, 
Washington, D.C. 20560, USA
3Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 5251 Broad 
Branch Road NW, Washington, D.C. 20015, USA
4Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 26 
Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
5Department of Paleobiology, NHB MRC 121, National Museum of Natural History, 
Washington, D.C. 20560, USA
Abstract

The enigmatic Paleozoic fossil Prototaxites Dawson 1859 consists of tree-like 
trunks as long as 8 m constructed of interwoven tubes <50 mm in 
diameter.Prototaxites specimens from five localities differ from 
contemporaneous vascular plants by exhibiting a carbon isotopic range, within 
and between localities, of as much as 13‰ δ13C. Pyrolysis–gas 
chromatography–mass spectrometry highlights compositional differences between 
Prototaxites and co-occurring plant fossils and supports interpretation of 
isotopic distinctions as biological rather than diagenetic in origin. Such a 
large isotopic range is difficult to reconcile with an autotrophic 
metabolism, suggesting instead that, consistent with anatomy-based 
interpretation as a fungus, Prototaxites was a heterotroph that lived on 
isotopically heterogeneous substrates. Light isotopic values of 
Prototaxitesapproximate those of vascular plants from the same localities; in 
contrast, heavy extremes seen in the Lower Devonian appear to reflect 
consumption of primary producers with carbon-concentrating mechanisms, such 
as cryptobiotic soil crusts, or possibly bryophytes. Prototaxites 
biogeochemistry thus suggests that a biologically heterogeneous mosaic of 
primary producers characterized land surfaces well into the vascular plant 
era.


Toby
http://patternliteracy.com


On Nov 6, 2013, at 1:17 PM, georg parlow wrote:

> I agree, John. Imho we are having fossil oil and coal only because  
> when the giant trees covered the earth, there were no fungus around  
> who could break down the lignin - so they whre piling up hundreds of  
> meters, and when they got folded in by some geological event and  
> received pressure etc., they turned into coal/oil - fungi came after  
> the lignious trees, I understand. I might be wrong tho.
> Georg
> 
> 
> Am 05.11.2013 um 00:11 schrieb John D'hondt:
> 
>> 
>> Very interesting but unlikely imo. Fungi are recyclers of organic  
>> material
>> and there was not a lot of it before the land was colonised by real  
>> plants
>> and animals. Also a mushroom is just a way for a fungus to procreate  
>> and
>> most of the fungus is out of sight under ground. No point in having  
>> your
>> gonads bigger than the rest of you.
>> John
>> 
>>> Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant  
>>> Mushrooms
>>> |
>>> Smart News
>>> http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/07/long-before-trees-overtook-the-land-earth-was-covered-by-giant-mushrooms/
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