A vast world of rock-eating fungi lurks deep underneath the Great Lakes
Reported byPopular Science ↗·Sourced by Goodlede
University of Michigan researchers isolated and grew more than 200 kinds of fungi from deep subsurface water 650 to 1,650 feet beneath the Great Lakes, cataloguing 689 unique fungi species including 13 newly described species. Water samples from 11,000-year-old Ice Age meltwater contained around 250 fungal cells per droplet—comparable to ocean samples—demonstrating a vast, complex ecosystem feeding on shale rock.
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