Department of Computing and Mathematics, Faculty of Advanced Technology, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd CF37 1DL, United Kingdom.
J Theor Biol. 2012 Jul 7;304:226-34. doi: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2012.03.036. Epub 2012 Apr 5.
Fungal mycelia have a well-established role in nutrient cycling and are widely used as agents in biological control and in the remediation of polluted landscapes. Competition and combat between different fungal communities is common in these contexts and its outcome impacts on local biodiversity and the success of such biotechnological applications. In this investigation a mathematical model representing mycelia as a system of partial differential equations is used to simulate combat between two fungal colonies growing into a nutrient-free domain. The resultant equations are integrated numerically and the model simulates well-established outcomes of combat between fungal communities. The outcome of pairwise combat is shown to depend on numerous factors including the suppression of advancing hyphae in rivals, the degradation of a rival's established biomass and the utilization and redistribution of available nutrient resources. It is demonstrated how non-transitive hierarchies in fungal communities can be established through switching mechanisms, mirroring observations reported in experimental studies, and how specialized defensive structures can emerge through changes in the redistribution of internal resources.
真菌菌丝在营养物质循环中起着重要作用，广泛应用于生物防治和污染景观修复。在这些情况下，不同真菌群落之间的竞争和对抗是很常见的，其结果会影响到当地的生物多样性和这些生物技术应用的成功。在这项研究中，一个将菌丝表示为偏微分方程组系统的数学模型被用来模拟两种真菌在无营养区域中生长的对抗。所得方程被数值积分，模型很好地模拟了真菌群落之间对抗的成熟结果。对抗的结果取决于许多因素，包括对竞争菌丝的抑制、对已建立的生物量的降解以及对可用营养资源的利用和再分配。结果表明，通过切换机制可以在真菌群落中建立非传递层次结构，反映了实验研究中报告的观察结果，以及如何通过改变内部资源的再分配来产生专门的防御结构。
