Maybe no Death Cap for Cutie

You probably already know that just because something is organic or grown doesn't mean that it is edible. If you didn't know that, you're going to learn about poisonous mushrooms to avoid in this article.

While most mushrooms won't outright kill you, the species that are considered poisonous in most cases will either cause temporary discomfort or illness when consumed by people. Apparently, 90% of mushroom related deaths are from one species: the death cap also known as Amantia phalloides. The death cap mushroom is interesting as its fruiting body resembles that of harmless edible species, but the toxin it releases (amatoxins) are thermostable and do not break down when the mushroom is cooked. Instead of being an unusual color like a fly agaric, ink cap, or tawny webcap, death caps are white and really do resemble something safe to eat. Hence, this particular mushroom has the highest mortality rate. It's estimated that half of the fruiting body of the mushroom has enough amatoxin and phallotoxin to kill an adult human.

How do the toxins work? What makes it so dangerous? Amatoxins, which are almost exclusively found in mushrooms, are absorbed through the digestive tract, primarily the liver. There is no evidence that it can be absorbed through the skin so it's not game over if you come in contact with something that produces the toxin, but it can cause skin irritation. The liver is usually the first organ to show signs of exposure, but symptoms include but are not limited to nausea, dizziness, liver and kidney damage, diarrhea, gastrointestinal disturbances, back pain and/or death. Phallotoxin is more of an anomaly because while it is one residue smaller than amatoxins and also is lethal for the liver, it is not absorbed by the gut.

Where exactly is the death cap from? The death cap species is of European origin but recently it has been found in parts of North America and has been reproducing at a rate that is slightly concerning. How do mushrooms reproduce? Well, these specific fungi have been found to create new generations of mushroom by combining genomes with one another, but they don't necessarily need a partner to reproduce. Apparently, unlike the European strain, the US strain of this mushroom can produce spores using the chromosomes of a single individual mushroom. In case you were curious, these findings are based on the genomes of 86 mushrooms collected in the state of California since 1993 and parts of Europe since 1978. Interestingly enough, it's the American samples of death caps that appear to be able to reproduce both sexually and asexually (as previously described) at least for the last 17 years and possibly for as long as the last 30 years.

This may seem to be news that is not very surprising as there are plenty of species of fungi that are known to reproduce both sexually and asexually, but this behavior has not been previously observed in death caps. Which, for the record, asexual reproduction is to blame for the rapid spread, but sexual reproduction is what made death caps really adjust and thrive. Another thing the research suggests is that in observing both asexual and sexual spores from these fungi scientists discovered that a death cap will continue to replicate itself until it finds another death cap to mate with.

So, the good news here is that in understanding the spread, the next step is controlling how the death caps are spreading such that they pose less of a threat to people. 

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