Large-scale behavior of fungal mycelia

Fungal mycelia often epitomise the growth and pattern-generating properties of a wide variety of indeterminate living systems. They may, therefore, provide an experimentally accessible model for the study of other networked structures such as nervous and vascular systems. In the following, we use a system of coupled reaction-diffusion equations to model the large-scale behaviour of growing and interacting mycelial networks. The effect of varying certain crucial parameters within the system is illustrated by solving the equations numerically. In this way, we are able to reproduce and predict many readily observable properties of developing mycelia. Such an approach is a test of the feasibility of the hypothesis that radical, adaptive shifts in mycelial pattern can be explained by purely contextual, rather than genetic changes.