Mushrooms aren't only a good source of protein and medical aid, they're nature's natural rain maker. The natural cloud seeders release spores that promote rain drops and in turn may promote rain.
Apparently there is an unknown feedback system, as published in the medical journal PLOS ONE, that rain stimulates growth of plants and other flora such as mushrooms. In turn, the fertile adult mushroom releases spores that can promote downpour.
Senior Author Nicholas Money of Miami University's Biology Department confirms that there is evidence of water droplets on the mushroom's surface. This is only unique to mushrooms, in nature.
These non-pollutant spores are discharged from the mushroom's gills by rapid displacement of fluid on mushroom cell surfaces and the internal stimulation of the mushroom's sugar production. A catapult mechanism shoots the moist spores in the air and the liquid in it evaporates. In the now humid air, the scientists have discovered with the use of an electron microscope that the droplets have become larger drops of water that can become rainclouds. Any type of fungi can do this.
Though it predicts a possibility for an alternative water source, that doesn't mean we should start planting mushrooms everywhere to make it rain and relieve drought, Money said. "Nature works best if we leave her alone... The problem starts when we cut down too many trees..." If we cut down too many trees then the environmental factors that contribute to the growth of mushrooms are in danger.
Mushrooms can't survive without forests. Mushrooms survive on decomposing plant tissues and by recycling the forests' nutrients.
Lynne Boddy of the Cardiff School of Biosciences told Discovery that "Fungi are absolutely crucial to the functioning of forests and other terrestrial ecosystems."
This will make you think twice when the mushroom salad you're eating supplies your body with its nutrients.
