Diario del proyecto Decomposers in the Northern Hemisphere

Phylogeny of the Artist's Bracket:
The fungus "Artist's fungus," also called "Artist's bracket," is part of the kingdom fungi and division basidiomycota. Its class, order, and family are agaricomycetes, polyporales, and ganodermataceae, respectively. Finally its genus is Ganoderma, resulting in its scientific name being Ganoderma applanatum. On OneZoom it took nearly 2 whole minutes of traveling down the phylogenic branch to arrive at this fungi, demonstrating the vast diversity of the fungi kingdom. There are over 50,000 species of fungi.
One Shared Adaptation:
Decomposers have the capability to recycle dead plants and animals into chemical nutrients (ex. carbon, nitrogen) which they are then able to use for as energy. Many of them have even adapted to work symbiotically with other organisms, for example earthworms fertilize soil, and rhizobium fix nitrogen into nitrates.
One Unique Adaptation:
I observed a "Dryad's saddle" (Cerioporus squamosus), and something that is unique about it is that it is actually a polypore, meaning that it has little holes instead of gills. The holes help the mushroom to increase its surface area, which allows it to disperse more spores over a larger area.

On the phylogenetic tree the common earthworm (or Lumbricus terrestris) can be found by locating eukaryotes, continuing on to animals, fungi and more, locating bilaterally symmetrical animals, then to the clade protostomes, then spiralia, then trochozoa, reaching the phylum annelid, to the class clitellates, order haplotaxida, onto the Genus Lumbricus and then finally to the species. This genus contains hundreds of species of worm.

All of the observed species in my group project “Decomposers of the Northern Hemisphere” have adapted to feed on dead organic matter, breaking it down to its smallest parts so it can be recycled back into the ecosystem. We could not survive without the nutrients this provides. Fungi, for example, use the broken down nitrogen in order to make essential proteins.

One of the species I found and observed known as the stinking dapperling (or Lepiota cristata) is largely believed to be a poisonous mushroom; it has adapted to produce toxins which are harmful to organisms that attempt to consume them. They use this as a defense mechanism, which is demonstrated through their stinky smell.

May O'Connell

Phylogeny of the Splitgill mushroom:
The Splitgill mushroom, which looks like a Chinese fan, is known as Schizophyllum commune. It has the genus of Schizophyllum, the order of Gilled mushrooms, the class of Agaricomycetes, the phylum of Basidiomycota and the kingdom of Fungi. Basidiomycota always refers to a filamentous fungi composed of hyphae, while Gilled mushrooms refer to the type of mushroom with which we are most familiar. Some of them are edible but some are toxic. Schizophyllum‘s range is reduced to coral-like mushrooms with undulating waves.

An adaptation present in all observed species in your group project:
The adaptation that all observed species in our group project have in common is: They all live in a wet environment such as earthworms, the fungus and so on. Taking the fungus as an example, it is really easy to find those fungus after a rainy day or deep in the woods. The fungus do not make its own food, but use their mycelium to reach into the soil and decaying wood and suck up readily available nutrients to sustain itself. So they often grow in damp, warm places rich in organic matter.

One unique adaptation for one of my observations:
One unique adaptation for the Splitgill mushroom is that they split almost everywhere on the tree trunks with shapes like a Chinese fan. This is because they often split when they are lack of water and moistened into gills, causing them to have a split shape, which is really unique.

Phylogeny of the brown lipped snail:
The brown lipped snail, also known as the grove snail, is known scientifically as Capaea nemoralis. It’s phylum Mollusca is very diverse and includes animals like squids, but it’s class Gastropoda is specific to just snails and slugs, while its family Helicidae is limited to air-breathing land snails.

The specimen looks like this image of a brown lipped snail taken by carlacorazza on iNaturalist:

An adaptation present in all observed species:
A specific adaptation common to all the decomposers observed is they secrete substances to live, including enzymes, mucus, and slime. For example, fungi secrete digestive enzymes to help them digest food extracellularly, worms secrete mucus to help them breath through their skin (aids in diffusion), and snails and slugs secrete “slime” to protect themselves from hazards.

One unique adaptation to one organism:
One unique adaptation of the brown lipped snail is the diversity in shell colour (brown, dark pink, light pink, very pale pink, dark yellow, and light yellow) and how the frequency of one shell colour changes based on location. Brown lipped snails are hunted by the song thrush bird which hunt by sight alone, so if the snail’s shell does not match its habitat it is more likely to be caught and die, explaining why certain shell colours would be favourable in similarly coloured locations.