fungi

Without the fungi, this would be just another sandbar.

As a result, the density differential of the fungi-treated wood approach that of the Cremonese wood.

One of them involves predatory insects; another involves fungi.

Filamentous fungi grow in soil and in decaying vegetation.

The heavy metals are still there, but instead of leaching into the water system and contaminating the water underground, large amounts of these metals may remain bound to the chitin, to the cell walls of filamentous fungi in the soil, and thus remain chemically inactive for as long as 30 years, perhaps longer.

In fact, we can actually use the cell walls of filamentous fungi as a filter, even after the fungi are dead. 

For example, the pharmaceutical industry grows filamentous fungi in large quantities in the lab, like to produce the antibiotic penicillin, the drug company grows the fungus penicillium, and after the penicillin is extracted, these dead penicillium filaments, we can use the chitin in their cell walls to make industrial filters to adsorb heavy metals.

Like other fungi, mushrooms can absorb large quantities of heavy metals.

And fungi in general are often an important active component of the soil.

But to me, what's most interesting about this process is how it may enable fungi to help clean up environmental pollution in the soil.

Now a lot of people think fungi are related to plants, but they are not.

So in this sense, fungi are more associated with insects than with any plant.

The fungi absorb moisture and mineral salts from the rocks, passing these on in waste products that nourish algae.