MYCOLab Ai Logo - gold and army green

An experimental approach to study foraging memory in ectomycorrhizal mycelium

Summary

Researchers tested whether mushroom fungi can remember where they found food by exposing fungal cultures to pea nutrients and then transferring them to fresh medium to see if they would grow toward where the food had been. The fungi did not show this memory behavior, but the study revealed that chemical compounds from the peas influenced fungal growth patterns. This work provides valuable tools and insights for studying how fungi perceive and respond to their environment, emphasizing the importance of publishing negative results to advance scientific understanding.

Background

Behavioral ecology of fungi is an emerging field investigating how fungi respond to environmental stimuli through morphological and physiological changes. Memory in fungi has been demonstrated in some species, such as yeasts showing adaptive responses to stress and saprotrophic fungi showing directional growth toward past nutrient sources. This study explores whether ectomycorrhizal fungi possess similar memory capabilities for nutrient foraging.

Objective

To develop and test an experimental methodology to investigate whether the ectomycorrhizal fungus Laccaria bicolor retains directional information about nutrient sources and exhibits directional growth toward previously encountered pea cotyledons after mycelial transfer to fresh medium.

Results

No evidence of directional memory was found; fungi grew symmetrically regardless of prior pea exposure in both nutrient conditions. However, fungi exposed to peas developed distinctive radial ridge morphologies compared to controls, which disappeared when mycelium was transferred without associated agar, suggesting agar-borne plant compounds from peas influenced fungal morphology rather than memory encoding.

Conclusion

Laccaria bicolor did not demonstrate directional foraging memory in this experimental system, possibly due to axenic culture conditions lacking plant hosts. Despite negative results, the methodology provides a framework for future studies on fungal behavioral ecology and cognition in both ectomycorrhizal and saprotrophic species.
  • Published in:Communications in Integrative Biology,
  • Study Type:Experimental Study,
  • Source: 10.1080/19420889.2025.2580130, PMID: 41221379
Scroll to Top