Fungi, man and his environmrnt

• Main Author: Cooke, R. C (Author)
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: London Longmans 1977; ©1977
• Subjects: Fungi
• Online Access: Click Here to View Status and Holdings.

 Many good textbooks concerned with various aspects of the study of fungi are available which it would be difficult to equal or to improve upon. The majority have been written by professional mycologists for the enlightenment of other professional mycologists, or as instruments for the training of students who aspire to be mycologists. By virtue of the audience to which they are addressed, they tend to present difficulties to the general biologist who wishes to know something of fungi, and to the naturalist or student who has a curiosity towards these organ isms. The progress of experimental mycology is firmly in the hands of predominantly laboratory-based research workers, usually specializing in taxonomic, physio logical, biochemical, genetic or pathogenic aspects of fungal behaviour. These specialized activities are important, particularly where there are medical or agri cultural problems to be solved, but in specializing there is a danger that the broad picture of fungi as whole organisms will be lost. It can quite fairly be said that a great many mycologists are concerned with the esoteric in their disci pline, and that mycologists as a whole have a not undeserved reputation for un necessary precision within their subject and for presenting it in a desiccated form. Yet fungi and their activities impinge on us all, literally daily, in a number of ways. They interact for good or bad with a vast range of other organisms and their intervention in human affairs in the widest sense is of great importance. I am a professional mycologist and have for a number of years been concerned with a study of the arcana of my chosen fields of research. I am, however, fortu nate in that I teach undergraduate and postgraduate students. In order to do this a broadness of approach has been useful especially when, within it, the unique ness of fungi as organisms can be communicated. Drawing from this experi ence I have attempted to write a book about fungi rather than a textbook on fungi. Instead of attempting to cover the whole field of mycology I have selected mycological topics which I hope will illustrate what fungi do, why they are im portant to us, and how they are being studied at the present time.