By David Clements/Special to 91原创 Advance Times
鈥淲hen we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.鈥�
So said John Muir (1838-1914), the great American naturalist who is credited with starting up both the Sierra Club and the national parks system.
Muir鈥檚 advocacy grew out of his profound appreciation for the value of nature and seeing it all connected. Humanity, he insisted, must not miss the important connection to ourselves and well-being.
鈥淓verybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike,鈥� Muir pronounced in his book 鈥楾he Yosemite,鈥� inspired by his ramblings in California鈥檚 Yosemite.
As national parks were propagated across the American landscape and throughout the world, so also did more local and regional parks.
Here in coastal British Columbia, we are fortunate to have many types of parks, including many wild and wonderful Metro Vancouver Regional Parks.
When participating in the Metro Vancouver Parks 鈥渟nap and share鈥� BioBlitz this past October, the organisms that really caught my eye were the fungi.
No matter which Metro Vancouver Park I roamed, the fungi would shout out at me with their colour, their unique forms, and their sheer audacity.
Why were they so numerous this year?
Knowing some (but not all) of the secret life of fungi, it is amazing to think they were there all along, but it was just the right conditions of dry periods followed by ideal amounts of rainfall and temperature that caused them to fruit.
Yes, that鈥檚 what I said 鈥� they were there all along, hitched to everything else in the universe.
The thin, thread-like fungal mycelia are omnipresent in a forest, connecting with tree roots, connecting with other fungi, running all through the ground, through rotting logs, literally connecting everything.
Many more connections abound, most of which science is still in the early days of exploring.
The subterranean world where their threads wander is populated by millions of mites, springtails, and nematodes 鈥� to name a few鈥� that all must interconnect with the fungi somehow, just as the plant roots do.
Some fungal mycelia have even become predatory, lunching on nematodes, rotifers, and the like catching their prey via miniature mycelial lassos.
Then out of this rich underground world, fungal fruiting bodies suddenly appear in autumn, fed by their numerous connections to life, the universe, and everything.
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鈥� David Clements PhD, is a professor of biology and environmental studies at Trinity Western University
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