Colônias de fungos em crescimento radial em meio de cultura
Colonies of fungi with radial growth in culture mediumTELLING A LITTLE BIT ABOUT
THE HISTORY OF THE FUNGI
It may be difficult to remember our first contact with that
we call as fungi today, and probably when we begin to learn
about organisms and the division of the living beings into king-
doms, it would be difficult to absorb what these beings really
represent and how important they are in our lives. The fungi,
invariably, are among us, by the way, we are among them, as far
as we know in the history, they were already here when human-
ity appeared. Little is known about fungi and it is pretentious to
think that there is nothing more to be achieved. Every day we are
surprised by new discoveries and, as a puzzle, the interrelations
between the world of fungi and other living beings, even with the
inanimate ones, are taken place always under the control of the
environment.
The fungi encompass numerous micro and macroscopic
forms ranging from small cells, known as yeasts, widely used
in the manufacture of beverages and bread, to the well-known
mushrooms and bracket fungi; and most of them can be appre-
ciated by the naked eye and some consumed as food. Others,
however, like truffles, grow under the soil associated with spe-
cific plant roots and are considered the most expensive food in
the world, being detected in the field only by the accurate smell
of properly trained pigs and dogs. Fungi also encompass giant
forms perceived by their effects on the environment, such as
the drought of entire coniferous forests in North America by the
colonization of a single individual, the Armillaria fungus, con-
sidered the largest and oldest living being ever found on earth,
occupying an area larger than 9 km^2 (1; 2). These organisms may
also contain substances for the cure and treatment of diseases,
they may be lethal to other living beings by their preferences for
certain substrates that serve them as food, in addition to their
toxic properties.It is unlikely to specify the time when fungi appeared on
earth. However, the oldest mushroom fossil in the world was
found right here in Brazil, in rocks of the Chapada do Araripe,
in Ceará state (3). The fossil mushroom is approximately 120
million years old and is deposited at the URM fungal herbarium
(University Recife Mycologia), at Federal University of Pernam-
buco (UFPE), which contains more than 88,000 fungal records,
being considered one of the largest collections of herbal fungi
of Latin America (4).Firstly, with curiosity only and then with interest, man be-
gan to notice fungi as independent living beings. The first nega-
tive influences were probably perceived when fungi were asso-
ciated with plants, causing diseases that culminated in losses in
grain production and the death of cereal crops, with the conse-
quent population decline. Even without knowing that they were
Plant parasitic fungi, called phytoparasitic or phytopathogenic
fungi today, man already made conjectures and indirect treat-
ments to try to minimize the problems caused by them.