Week 7 Briefing: Border disputes

Contested soil between fungal individuals, and the recognition systems that decide where one genet's growth stops and another's begins.

Rajarshi Rit · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Case file 07

Date: 5 April 2027
Metaphor: Border disputes — contested territory and the recognition of who holds it
Phenomenon: Root and mycelial territoriality: competition for substrate between fungal genets, and self/non-self recognition at contact zones

Before the session

Read the assigned material on fungal genet boundaries. Bring one guess at what “recognition” could mean for an organism with no nervous system.

In the session

Distinguish three things that get conflated in casual accounts: a visible fungal fruiting body, a genet, and a mycelial network. Map which of this week’s claims apply to which.

Afterwards

Carry the recognition question into week 10, where the same boundary problem gets a specific genetic mechanism attached to it.

The spec

What you bring to the session. Written so a reader can tell whether it has been met without asking you.

you can define "genet" as distinct from "the fungal individual you can see above ground"
you can state one consequence of self/non-self recognition succeeding or failing at a contact zone

Teaching team

Tobias Lindqvist — tutor