Nature's Currency and Mine; Both Underestimated!

The above photo has several shapes and colors that appeal to me.  The contrast between the orange of the fungus and the green of the adjoining leaves and moss stands out, as does the shapes of the California Black Oak leaf.  My first response to this scene was aesthetic.   However, as a person with a natural history background, I couldn't help but ponder the relationship between fungi and plants that is taking place beneath the surface.  In recent years, it has come to light that symbioses of this sort are possibly the most common relationship among species, but go unnoticed by nearly everyone but mycologists.  In a sense, fungi may be seen as the "currency" of the biotic realm.

Then, I returned to my habit of placing coins by the fungal caps to show scale.  Everyone knows the size of a penny, but do they know its value?  Our currency makes for an interesting study.  I think if I were teaching high school economics again, I might begin by pointing out that currently (semi-hidden pun here) it costs 1.99 cents to make a penny.  A couple of years ago, it cost 2.41 cents.  The prices of the component metals vary according to supply and demand and speculation in markets.  But, at the grocery store, it's only worth 1 cent, whatever that means. 

Just for a little aesthetic variety, I decided to place one of my Sucres from Ecuador next to the fungus.  The Sucre is 26 mm in diameter, to the nearest whole millimeter.  But, in Ecuador, people have presumably internalized the size of a Sucre in a way similar to our internalizing the size of a penny.  When we see a penny, we don't think 19 mm, yet most of us can "feel" a penny in our pockets among a collection of various denominations.

Ah, the "coin of the realm," so to speak.

Here are some upstarts.  Our currency seems to dominate over nature's currency, except what remains unseen in this photo is actually going to have "the last laugh."

I had a discussion with some friends this morning about these crazy ideas of mine, and one person used the phrase "bear fodder" to describe the apples and other fruits that were disappearing from the neighborhood due to bears foraging.  In my neighborhood, I'm seeing large, fresh bear poop every morning, and I got wondering if Dung Beetles might consider bear poop their currency.  Could we think of the piles of poop as Beetle fodder?  All of this can possibly be summarized by the idea often expressed in environmental discussion, "Everything is connected to everything else."  Food for thought.