Study
Mushrooms use convectively created airflows to disperse their spores
Dressaire, Emilie; Yamada, Lisa; Song, Boya; Roper, Marcus
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016
Spore clouds around fruiting mushrooms were visualised with laser sheets in still air, alongside thermal imaging of the cap and measurement of local water vapour, to determine whether the mushroom was moving air itself.
- Studied in
- Agaricus bisporus, Pleurotus ostreatus
- Sample size
- mushrooms filmed with laser-illuminated spore clouds and thermal imaging
Evaporation cools the cap and humidifies the air beneath it, creating a rising convective flow. The mushroom generates its own local wind, lifting spores centimetres clear of the ground where ambient air can carry them away.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Mushrooms actively create the airflow that disperses their spores rather than waiting passively for wind.
How NatureHQ reads it
The result reframes a mushroom from a passive spore-shedder into something that manufactures its own weather. It also answers a question the older picture could not: how spores escape at all in the completely still air of a forest floor under leaf litter, where there is no wind to catch. The cost is water — which is another reason mushrooms appear after rain and shrivel quickly afterwards.
- Two cultivated species in still laboratory air.
- Field conditions include wind and turbulence that may swamp the effect.
- The contribution of this flow to real dispersal distances is modelled rather than measured outdoors.
The mushroom that makes its own wind
How do spores get anywhere at all in the completely still air under leaf litter, where there is no wind to catch them?
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesPublished in PNAS.
doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1509612113
This reference was resolved automatically against Crossref on 2026-08-11.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-10.