Mushrooms can talk, too, and they can say 50 words! No, they're probably just smacking their lips!

Humans are not the only ones in the world who can speak. Many life forms can exchange environmental information with each other, such as where there is food and where there is danger, so as to seek benefits and avoid harm.

Scientists have discovered that bees use dancing to tell their companions where the best nectar resources are, and the scientists who conducted related research also won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973. Plants do not stay in place stupidly, they release volatile organic compounds to attract pollinators, scare off natural enemies, or convey dangerous information in the environment to neighboring plants.

Friends from the animal and plant kingdoms can chatter, so can members of the fungal kingdom like mushrooms communicate with each other?

Mushroom: I'm really not a cobra, please stop stepping on me! ｜reddit

A recent study found that members of the fungus kingdom seem to be able to "talk", and have a "fungal vocabulary" of up to 50 words, of which there are about 15 to 20 common words.

What are you talking about? Electrical pulse signal

The exclusive language of mushrooms is actually the regular electrical pulse signals emitted by fungal mycelium.

Researcher Andrew Adamatzky is a British computer scientist who had previously discovered the existence of electrical signals in fungi - regular electrical pulse activities of high or low frequencies can be observed in Pleurotus djamor and Ganoderma resinaceum.

Red oyster mushroom, edible, also cultivated in my country｜wikimedia commons

Both the hyphae morphology and electrical signals of fungi are reminiscent of networks of nerve cells that transmit information.

In the nervous system of animals, various initial physical and chemical stimuli will stimulate electrical pulses on the neuron cell membrane. The current is transmitted along the slender axon to the next neuron, conveying instructions to control the body to other parts, or broadcasting information such as environmental perception.

The mycelium of fungi is composed of countless long and thin hyphae, which are morphologically very similar to a network composed of nerve cells; the hyphae also regularly transmit electrical pulse signals, which can be regarded as information carriers for communication and transmission of instructions to each other.

Mycelium growing on coffee grounds, the extended mycelium looks like a neural network | Tobi Kellner

Are electrical impulses the language of fungi, like the dances performed by bees, the scents emitted by plants, and the pheromones of ants?

Adamatsky has done some preliminary research and found that fungi can spontaneously generate electrical pulses without external stimulation. The amount of information carried by these electrical signals is shorter than human language, but the information contained in them is very complex and diverse.

Therefore, he is more suspicious that the electrical pulses emitted by fungi may be a mysterious language that humans have not yet understood, and that fungi can use this language to transmit environmental information and communicate their own status within the mycelium network.

The fungi vocabulary list has only 50 words, with less than 20 common words

In order to understand the mysterious language of mushrooms, Adamatsky selected four higher fungi, Schizophyllum commune, Cordyceps militaris, Flammulina velutipes, and Omphalotus nidiformis, as research objects in this latest study, and used the concepts and methods of algorithmic information theory to analyze the linguistic characteristics of their electrical pulse signals.

From top to bottom, the microelectrodes are: Cordyceps militaris, Schizophyllum corylifolium, and Agaricus tricholoma | References [1]

First, the electrical activity signals in the fungi are recorded in time sequence using microelectrodes, and then the electrical signal sequence is converted into binary information based on the presence or absence of electrical pulse spikes, just like a black and white barcode. If this is really the language of fungi, then the series of binary barcodes may be the poems written by fungi.

The converted electrical signal looks like a barcode | Reference [1]

The researchers regarded an electrical pulse spike as a "letter", and continuous electrical pulses within a certain time interval as a "word". Different combination patterns of multiple electrical pulse signals formed the basis of fungal words.

The length distribution pattern of these fungal "words" is very similar to that of many European languages, and together they form a fungal vocabulary of 50 "words". Syntax analysis shows that different combinations of electric pulses can be further assembled into more complex "sentences", but only about 15 to 20 core words are the most common combination patterns in the fungal electric pulse signal records. It turns out that fungal language is also divided into common words and rare words.

Based on the concepts and standards in algorithmic information theory, the researchers analyzed the information complexity of this fungal dictionary and found that the electrical signals of fungi are not simply random combinations, but have a certain complexity, which may really mean that fungi are transmitting information in a regular manner.

Does smacking your lips count as talking?

Some scientists have raised questions about mushroom language. The rhythm of the electric pulses of fungi is similar to the frequency of nutrient transport in the hyphae. Could it be that the normal growth and metabolism of fungi produce these electrophysiological activities? For example, when a person smacks his lips while eating, this is obviously not talking.

Smacking your lips while eating makes a sound, but it doesn’t count as talking｜Giphy

There is some truth to this suspicion.

The results of this study show that among the four fungi, Schizophyllum not only speaks the most words, but also has the highest word complexity.

However, wood-destroying fungi such as Schizophyllum have been found to emit more electrical pulses when degrading wood. The fruiting bodies of Schizophyllum used in the study were collected directly from the wild along with the wood they grew on, so it is possible that the Schizophyllum samples simply produced more electrical pulses when degrading the wood.

Schizophyllum: I'm just breaking down wood, I'm not talking | Lebrac

Even the researchers themselves admit that there is an electric potential difference at the tips of actively growing hyphae, and the sensitive microelectrodes can naturally detect the electrical signals therein.

However, complexity analysis of the fungal dictionary shows that the information in it is not random and disordered. To a certain extent, its complexity and length can even be compared with human language.

Different types of organisms have certain similarities in the way they process information. If these electrical signals are really some form of information carrier, then fungi, like other life forms, have no essential differences in terms of communication and information transmission.

However, it is too advanced to directly interpret the electrical impulse signals of fungi as language. If scientists can further analyze the meaning of these fungal sentences, compile their dictionaries and deconstruct their grammar, and translate mushroom language into words that humans can understand, then it will probably become the real mushroom language.

Mushroom: Barbarian type, grab me! ｜Giphy

References

[1] Adamatzky, A. (2022). Language of fungi derived from their electrical spiking activity. Royal Society Open Science, 9(4), 211926.

[2] Adamatzky, A. (2018). On spiking behavior of oyster fungi Pleurotus djamor. Scientific reports, 8(1), 1-7.

[3] Adamatzky, A., & Gandia, A. (2021). On electrical spiking of Ganoderma resinaceum. Biophysical Reviews and Letters, 1-9.

[4] Mahdi Dehshibi, M., & Adamatzky, A. (2020). Electrical activity of fungi: Spikes detection and complexity analysis. arXiv e-prints, arXiv-2008.

[5] Do mushrooms really use language to talk to each other? A fungi expert investigates https://theconversation.com/do-mushrooms-really-use-language-to-talk-to-each-other-a-fungi-expert-investigates-181079

Author: Silkworm Boy

Editor: Xiao Towel, You Shiyou

An AI

The enoki mushrooms, king oyster mushrooms, seafood mushrooms, and shiitake mushrooms in the refrigerator might be in a meeting and scolding you!

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